For Euroacademia's Second Global Forum of Critical Studies, I am organising and chairing a panel on gender. Abstracts to be submitted to myself at pollyn@live.co.uk or to application@euroacademia.eu http://euroacademia.eu/conference/the-second-global-forum-of-critical-st...

In Judith Butler's highly influential and groundbreaking book 'Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity' (1990), Butler pokes fun at the notion that there is an 'original' gender to which we can ascribe, and playfully asserts that all gender is in fact scripted, rehearsed, and performed. To what extent can we challenge the notion that there is no fixed and gendered identity? Is it true to say that there is no such thing as real or true gender and/or that it is merely a constructed entity upon which implicit and invisible assumptions are heteronormatively entrenched in a patriarchal society? Can we really move beyond or outside gender and gendered constructions of identity? What are the stakes of eliding gender altogether? Is identity a fixed concept? Such questions become even more imperative nowadays given the growing politico-cultural tendency to assume that gender is an existing given which can either be singled out as a unique form of oppression or a systematised and neat classification in education, culture, and society at large. A case in point is the Universities UK's recent report which endorses gender segregation at university events.

This panel seeks to explore and address these issues in a number of ways. Broadly speaking, we welcome abstracts which engage with gender issues as documented in case studies, stories, on stage and in the literature, and particularly welcome papers which unsettle the fixed and divisive binary of 'subject/object', 'man/woman' and fixed notions of gender and identity politics.

We welcome any papers which focus on the following topics:

Notions of gender and identity politics in literature and the performing arts
Gender dysphoria, gender reassignment and drag
Gender issues in higher education, culture, religion and society
Ways of destabilising notions of a fixed and gendered body and identity politics and/or potentially moving beyond or outside gender definitions
Gender and trauma
Gender and identity formation
Please apply on-line or submit abstracts of less than 300 words together with the details of affiliation by January 10, 2014 to application@euroacademia.eu or to pollyn@live.co.uk