Call for Presentations

4th Global Conference

Friday 2nd May – Sunday 4th May 2014
Lisbon, Portugal

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Gender studies is an interdisciplinary field of academic study on the issues of gender in its social and cultural contexts. Since its emergence from feminism, gender studies have become one of the most deliberated disciplines. The following project aims at an interdisciplinary exchange of ideas and perspectives on the issues of femininities and masculinities in the 21st century. It invites ground-breaking research on a plethora of topics connected with gender, to propose an interdisciplinary view of the frontiers and to stake out new territories in the study of femininities and masculinities.

Papers, presentations, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to any of the following themes:

1. Representations of Femininities and Masculinities
- Femininities and masculinities in history and the history of gender
- The representation of gender in culture, art, film, literature
- The representation of gender in popular culture and media
- Gender in the relation to politics, law and social studies

2. Gender Borders and Transgressions
- Performativity of gender
- Female masculinities/male femininities
- Androgyny
- Transgender issues
- The body and its transgressions

3. New Directions in Feminisms and Masculinity Studies
- New perspectives in masculinity and boyhood studies
- Men in feminisms
- Third wave feminism, womanism
- Postfeminism, post-feminism and postfemininity
- Lesbian feminism
- Eco-feminism
- Cyberfeminism
- Individual feminism
- Feminist disability studies

4. Global and Regional Perspectives on Gender
- Gender and race
- Gender and nationality
- Gender and (post)colonialism
- Case studies of gender issues in local/regional/national perspectives
- Global masculinities/ femininities
- Gender across borders

5. Investigating the diffusion of feminism and feminist theory in non-West contexts
- Teasing out the tensions between competing feminisms
- The politics of representation: examining the “white woman’s burden” to voice/uplift her sisters of colour
- De-centring the onus of western feminism ‘as’ feminism proper
- Postulating masculinities in changing world-order
- Negotiating the back-story: the history of homosociality in pan-Asian societies

6. Gender in Relationships
- Motherhood/fatherhood
- Gender and family
- Matriarchy/ patriarchy
- Sororophobia and matrophobia
- Misogyny and misandry
- Female genealogy
- Gender and maturity

7. Gender in Experience
- gender in visual and performance arts
- gender in advertisement
- gender mainstreaming
- gender in psychotherapy
- gender, health and illness
- gender and the ethics of bodies and embodiment
- gender and education
- gender, education and equity
- gender in religion
- gender and NGOs

We welcome not only academic research presentations, but also case studies and creative proposals (creative writing, drama, visual art, performance, etc.)

In order to support and encourage interdisciplinarity engagement, it is our intention to create the possibility of starting dialogues between the parallel events running during this conference. Delegates are welcome to attend up to two sessions in each of the concurrent conferences. We also propose to produce cross-over sessions between two and possibly all three groups – and we welcome proposals which deal with the relationship between evil, women, femininity and/or violence and/or femininities and masculinities.

What to Send:
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 8th December 2013 If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 14th March 2014. 300 word abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation as you would like it to appear in programme, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: FM4 Abstract Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs:
Barbara Braid and Malwina Degórska: barbara.braid@gmail.com
Rob Fisher: fm4@inter-disciplinary.net

The conference is part of the At the Interface programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference must be in English and will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook.  Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s). All publications from the conference will require editors, to be chosen from interested delegates from the conference.