"Queer Space" (3/1/07: ELN Special Issue)

A respected forum since 1962 for new work in English literary
studies, ELN (English
  Language Notes) has undergone a change in editorship and an extensive makeover
  as a biannual journal devoted exclusively to special topics in all
fields of literary
  and cultural studies. The new ELN is particularly determined to revive and
  reenergize its traditional commitment to featuring shorter notes,
often no more than
  3-4 pages in print, an attribute of the journal that will provide a
unique forum for
  cutting-edge scholarly debate and exchange in the humanities.

Volume 45.2 of the new ELN (Fall/Winter 2007) seeks to make a radical
  intervention in the discourses of both spatiality and sexuality
studies. Contributors
  will explore gay, lesbian, bisexual, and queer definitions of space
not only in
  relation to the built environment but in response to a range of
boundaries and sites.
  We invite analyses of conceptual, geographical, discursive, virtual,
and metaphoric
  understandings of queer space, welcoming in particular
interdisciplinary essays that
move beyond extant work on the topic that deals primarily with male
experience.
  Contributors may consider, for example, any of the following: how homosexual
  desire inverts or complicates the logic of inside/outside; how
representations of
  queer space intercede in the relations between visibility and power;
how erotic
  connections construct a queer counter-public; how spaces such as
streets, sex clubs,
tearooms, and parks complicate notions of public and private; how the
meaning of
  interior design and domestic space shifts when considered in relation to the
  ideologies and institutions of sexuality; how intimate physical contact with
  geographical spaces offers refuge from the perceived tyranny of
heterosexuality;
  and how the mapping of a gay, lesbian, or bisexual subculture onto
local, national,
  and international communities potentially reframes the categories
of sex, gender,
  sexuality, nationality, and race. This ELN issue welcomes
considerations of queer
space that provide more than strictly sexual definitions of the term, and move
  beyond arguments that disclaim "queer" either as excessively capacious or
exclusionary (as it seeks to embrace readings of the ways women and lesbians
  occupy these spaces). By broadening the conceptual framework of spatiality and
  sexuality studies beyond the parameters that typically have defined
it for the past
  decade, we aim to examine how the obsessions, anxieties, and taboos that
  characterize what we might call amoral sensual spaces come to be
linked with gay
  and lesbian sensibilities.

The editors solicit original work that seeks to challenge heteronormative
  understandings of "space" while problematizing the term "queer."
Position papers,
  notes, and essays of no longer than 20 manuscript pages are invited
on this subject
  from scholars in all fields of literary and cultural studies; the
editors would be
delighted to consider together two or more related contributions engaging one
  another on particular themes to be published as topical clusters.
Book reviews on
  queer space topics are also welcome.

Please send contributions and/or proposals to The Editors, English
Language Notes,
University of Colorado at Boulder, 226 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309-0226. Deadline
for final submissions is March 1, 2007. Specific inquires regarding
volume 45.2 may be directed to the issue editor, Jane Garrity, via
e-mail garrity_at_buffmail.Colorado.EDU.

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Received on Sat Nov 25 2006 - 20:17:23 EST