Call for Papers for new anthology
Due date: February 22, 2005
Page limited: 20-25
Contact: embodiedheroism_at_hotmail.com

Embodied Heroism: Race, Class, Sexuality and the Female Hero

Recent attention to popular culture although embracing a single mode of
analysis (female, gay male, etc.) has not been so readily able to embrace
multiplicity. So while books on [white] female heroes are flourishing or on
[white male] queer representations in the media are in the process of
publishing, with few exceptions the role of women of color, lesbians of all
colors, physical capacity and differently abled bodies, and class conflict
often languish unexamined or relegated to popular texts rather than academic
ones. This anthology is a call to look past the myopic gaze of the dominant
(both those identities that dominant from the center and from within places
in the periphery) and to deal critically with the multitude of heroic images
of women of color, working class women of all colors, lesbian and bi-sexual
women of all colors, and differently-abled women of all colors or the
juxtaposition of abled and disabled bodies with and/or against the female
body of all colors.

The primary focus of the anthology is *Feminist Analysis* of Comic book
Heroines (including side kicks), Science Fiction film and TV, Video Game
Heroines, Female Detectives in fictional film and television, and Female
Heroes in the Fantasy genre. This includes women who are shoved to the
forefront (Nikita, Cat Woman, and Bat Girl) and women who are cast as side
kicks or supporting characters (Andromeda, Kendra, Arena).

Analysis that deals with depictions of race (whiteness, people of color,
interplays between races, the use of aliens and aliens of different colors
to stand in for race, etc.), the engendering of bodies (female
masculinities, hyper-femininity, etc.), desire (same sex, juxtaposing
straight and gay desire in a single series, lack or failed desire, etc.) and
the depictions of the dis/able body (disabled heroines, juxtaposition of
able bodied heroines with disabled heroes and vice versa, the hyper able
body – psychics, profilers, technologically enhanced, etc.), age (girl
heroes, teen heroes, adult heroes, the juxtaposition of young and old in a
single series, the "specter of aging", etc.) will be given preference.

Please send queries to embodiedheroism_at_hotmail.com questions having to do
with papers you have in mind should include a brief abstract. (Please no
more than a paragraph)

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Received on Mon Dec 13 2004 - 14:15:41 EST