300 Word proposals

<https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/21290>

Does the evolution of the family form, of its own volition, revolutionize kinship? What does? Can “family” as a social form be salvaged  by divorcing it from systems of heteropatriarchal power and privilege? Recent developments in family formation appear to do just the opposite by reinscribing long-critiqued patriarchal structures from the biological imperative (the expectation that women will prioritize reproduction over production) and paternity as ownership to the privatization of care, as Sophie Lewis explains in Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation (Verso 2022). This reinscription is evident in both regressive shifts in family systems (e.g., constraints on reproductive rights, including access to abortion and contraception) and seemingly progressive shifts (e.g., same-gender marriage and adoption, assisted reproductive technologies). Lewis argues that in fact "The family is getting in the way of alternatives" (8). Other writers and activists approaching family formation from queer and pro-trans/radical feminist perspectives, however, continue to reimagine and redefine family in ways that acknowledge the appeal of kinship while working to destabilize heteropatriarchal structures to abolish "family" as a privileged signifier.

This panel invites the exploration of and attempts to (R)Evolutionize the Family, through literary, filmic, and experiential examples, particularly through a radical feminist/queer lens. Possible topics include, but are not limited to: surrogacy, IVF/ART, (re)definitions of kinship, (re)definitions of caregiving, queer families, fetal personhood, family and/as acculturation.

Jeannie Ludlow, Eastern Illinois University, jludlow@eiu.edu

Modhumita Roy, Tufts, modhumita.roy@tufts.edu