Femspec - Call for Scholarly and Creative Submissions on Transgender Issues

deadline for submissions: 
January 1, 2024
full name / name of organization: 
Femspec
contact email: 

Discourse surrounding issues related to the transgender and feminist communities currently dominates contemporary cultural conversation globally. Against this backdrop, Femspec calls for submissions exploring speculative approaches to gender, and particularly to transgender identity and embodiment; the rise and use of what some liken to Orwellian doublespeak; and projections extrapolated from our present into the future. 

Femspec is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed feminist journal dedicated to science fiction, fantasy, magical realism, surrealism, myth, folklore, and other supernatural genres.  

Femspec publishes both academic scholarship and creative writing. We seek both scholarly and creative work that interrogates the concept of gender and questions its stability; that seeks to imagine gender outside of binary norms; and that explores what speculative fiction or structures of thought have to teach us about gender identity, gendered embodiment, and gendered subjectivity. Possible topics of inquiry include:

·   Representations of transgender or non-binary characters and/or cultures in the world making of science fiction, fantasy, and other forms of speculative literature

·   The destabilization of binary gender norms within speculative fiction

·   Fascism and/or cults and their relationship to gender as represented within speculative fiction

·   Speculative approaches to biopolitics and gender

·   Representations of gender-nonconformity, transgenderism, or non-binary gender identity within mythology or folklore

·   Speculative approaches to gender and bodily modification and transformation within cinema

·   Speculative approaches to gender within anime or manga

·   Interrogation of gender norms within horror fiction or cinema

·   Interrogation of gender norms through representations of monstrosity

·   How Octavia Butler's worlds and characters articulate and challenge gender within her speculative fiction.

·Representations of cultures/ontologies within speculative fiction, such as The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin, in which characters exist in androgynous forms or are able to alternate between male and female sexed forms

·   Cyborg ontology and its relationship to gender

·   Transgenderism and the post-/non-human, on earth or other planets in various contexts.

·   Speculative applications of the similarities and differences of queer/trans and feminist theory.

We are particularly interested in literature reviews that compare and contrast a range of positions and views, to better contextualize, critique, and understand issues that speculative literature does or does not raise, perhaps looking at various manifestos and basic texts as cultural artifacts. We are especially interested in reviews that take an historical view.

Creative writing submissions could include short fiction, poetry, or experimental forms that elucidate and/or question any of the above arenas.

To submit work for consideration for inclusion in the journal, please review Femspec’s submission guidelines at the following link:SUBMISSION GUIDELINES | Femspec

The submission form is located at the following link:Submission Form | Femspec

Please note that in order to submit work to the journal for publication, you must be subscribed to the journal; please click on the following link for subscription information:Subscribe | Femspec

The deadline for submission for Issue 24.1 is January 1st, 2024.