Call for Papers: In the counter-tradition of anthologies such as _This
Bridge Called My Back_, _Making Face, Making Soul_, and more recently,
_Third Wave Agenda_, _Jane Sexes It Up_ will be a collection of essays that
adeptly combine autobiography with theoretically sophisticated reflections
on a theme of particular importance in the late 1990s: women's lived
sexuality and feminist paradigms.
I am looking for essays that are both accessible and highly informed by
theory on the female body, sexuality, erotic politics, and/or other sites
of debate within feminism(s). Authors such as bell hooks, Maria Lugones,
Nancy Mairs, and the editors of _Third Wave Agenda_ (Leslie Heywood and
Jennifer Drake) provide excellent models of this combination.
As Rebecca Walker suggests in the introduction of _To Be Real: Telling the
Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism_, our personal and political lives
are messy-the line between oppressor and oppressed is blurred; we hate
patriarchy and racism but we love some people who are sexists and
racists-and we require a feminism that accounts for all of it. In this
spirit, I am particularly interested in the use of autobiography to
establish moments of dissonance between women's sexuality and feminist
politics in order to refine and move forward with a more inhabitable and
politically effective feminism. The messiness of women's sex lives, I
believe, can contribute to this development. While this collection seeks
to reconsider feminism, it is by no means conceived as a conservative or
backlashy project, rather a fresh offshoot of a growing movement. It will
build on a tradition of embodied (not essential) consciousness in feminism,
asking the still important questions: what can we learn about ourselves and
the world from looking at and theorizing our bodies? What knowledge, what
stories are housed there?
Essays should be approximately 20-25 pgs. Due date: Sept. 1, 1999.
Queries may be sent to Merri Lisa Johnson at: br00852@binghamton.edu and
papers to Jane Sexes It Up, c/o Merri Lisa Johnson, Binghamton University,
English Dept., P.O. Box 6000, Binghamton, NY 13902-6000.
If you are interested in contributing, query first for more details.
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