Non - A Journal of Alternative Sexualities in Literature and the Arts
Despite forming the basis for many cultural and political norms in the world today, sexuality is also that which resists easy normativity. In addition to agitating for change in the form of legal rights, critical thinking on non-conforming sexualities has also raised the question of sexuality itself as non-conformist. This latter strand of thinking allows us to think of sexuality as always having alternatives, and also being alternative to fixed forms of itself. This theorisation considers sexuality both from the political perspective from which it is often studied, and also from the perspective of literature and the arts. Although the arts are included in many and diverse contexts concerned with a more general debate, studies on artistic renditions of and about non-conforming sexualities seem to lack a place for research and dialogue. This is where Non. A Journal of Alternative Sexualities in Ancient and Modern Literature and the Arts enters the stage. Non is a new international journal designed to foster debate on artistic engagements with theories and practices of sexual non-conformity. While we are aware that artistic codes involve specific technical and sectoral skills, the decision to open a new space for debate was determined by a broader philosophical assumption. The geographies of the imaginary, which take shape in the spheres of literature, arts and the media, enact a performative negotiation of cultural models that allow us to access changing cultural and historical and theoretical debates around exuality.
Our title, Non, underlines our desire to challenge current perspectives, and to take a resolute stand of refusal when it comes to defining a normative sexuality. Instead, we welcome the ideas on which the arts and artists have focused. Alternative sexualities are therefore not only what are firmly established as minority identities, but also theories and practices in which sexuality is structurally incompatible with the coordinates of cultural systems. In other words, we are interested in all sexual theories and artistic practices that reject and rewrite normative dichotomies, and that in doing so question the rigidity of category-based social systems.
The journal welcomes the widest array of studies on the question of alternative sexualities: the debate is open to historical investigations of literature and the arts, to psychoanalysis, thematic criticism, and the many branches of queer theory. The journal also aims to challenge the boundaries imposed by traditional divisions of knowledge in terms both of history and of geography; hence, to bring together perspectives on artistic forms from antiquity to the 21st century, and diverse cultural traditions. The first issue will deal with theoretical and methodological problems, and will include a first series of case studies from different media and cultural traditions.
«Non» is double-blind peer-reviewed, issued yearly in print and online. Contributions are accepted in English, French, German, Italian, Dutch, and Spanish.
Submissions should be sent to the following e-mail addresses:
Deadline for submissions: May 31, 2022.
For submission guidelines and further info please check Fabrizio Serra’s submissions page: http://www.libraweb.net/norme_ing.pdf.