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Showing posts with label LGBTQ. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LGBTQ. Show all posts

Thursday, April 11, 2024

Call for papers #Queer Cold Wars: Deconstructing Bipolar Visions of #Gender and #Sexuality


Editors: Tatiana Klepikova (University of Regensburg), Maryna Shevtsova (KU Leuven),
Emil Edenborg (University of Stockholm)

In the twenty-first century, “LGBTQ+” has emerged as a key discursive cornerstone to signal alliances and oppositions and underpin broader geopolitical claims in the international arena. From the US War on Terror, backed by the rhetoric that Jasbir Puar defines as “homonationalism” (Puar 2013) or the EU’s use of LGBTQ+ issues in enlargement processes (Shevtsova 2020; Slootmaeckers 2017) to bans on displaying “abnormal sexual relationships and behaviors” on television in China, the declaration of the “international LGBT movement” an extremist organization in Russia, or police raids in gay clubs in Venezuela, there has emerged a picture of a world allegedly firmly divided into two camps—of states supporting LGBTQ+ rights and ones vehemently opposing them. This binary has often been theorized through the opposition of “homonationalism” vs. “heteronationalism” (see, e.g., Renkin & Trofimov 2023), and its most recent visceral manifestation is Russia’s invasion into Ukraine under the banner of fighting for “traditional values” (see, e.g., Kratochvíl & O’Sullivan 2023). Additional binaries such as Christianity vs. Islam, West vs. “the rest,” and democracy vs. autocracy have often also underpinned this framing.

Yet, how do we reconcile such binary frameworks with facts such as, for instance, a growing sexual and gender diversity within religious institutions in the uncompromisingly Catholic Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico, where queer priest:esses have been increasingly appointed as heads of parishes or churches (Bárcenas Barajas 2014; Córdova Quero 2018)? Or with the hosting of events like the Queer Art Festival in Azerbaijan—the country consistently ranked as “the worst in Europe in terms of LGBTQ+ rights” by ILGA Europe (Safarova 2021; ILGA-Europe 2023)? At the same time, signals of conservative developments come from regions firmly seen as the “pro-LGBTQ+ camp”—the introduction of “LGBT-free zones” in Poland (Ploszka 2023), a ban on gender studies in Hungary (Pető 2021), decidedly homophobic claims by the German AfD (Doer 2021), or the denial of gender affirmation to trans-individuals in Florida (Human Rights Campaign 2023). Set alongside each other, these practices decidedly call for a more nuanced approach to the idea of a bipolar world.

The proposed edited volume seeks to deconstruct an alleged bipolarity in international relations and explore the entanglements and slippages between homonationalism and political homophobia as two global forms of ideological and cultural domination. Our reference to and modification of the historical Cold War is intentional. As this concept emphasizes international political competition, tension, and proxy conflicts between two adversary camps, scholars have debunked the myth of their monolithic and dichotomic nature by revealing both the plurality within them and the porosity of boundaries “separating” them (e.g., Klepikova & Raabe 2020). In theorizing the contemporary “queer Cold Wars,” the proposed edited volume attends to such pluralities of actors and political systems that are never uniform or fully aligned in their goals, seeking to explore the roles of states, supranational organizations, transnational movements, and local and global communities. It also advocates for examining the role of the globalized economy and the spreading of neoliberal capitalism as a vehicle for transporting and adopting (and adapting) ideas of homonationalism and political homophobia (think here, for example, of Rahul Rao’s concept of “homocapitalism”; Rao 2015). Finally, it recognizes the alignment of these new “Cold Wars” with the arrival of the era of digital cultures and interrogates the role of digital infrastructures and networks in troubling the alleged binaries.

We welcome papers that seek to trouble binary geopolitical visions of sexuality and gender from the following perspectives and beyond:

  • religion (organized faith, economics of belief, etc.)
  • economic perspectives (humanitarian aid, homocapitalism, etc.)
  • education (schooling, ban on sex education, “protection of minors” discourse)
  • research (challenges to queer research globally, bans of research institutions, ethics of transgressing boundaries of the global West/South/East divides)
  • healthcare (regulations, adoption of ICD-11)
  • media (representations, global cultures of queerness, streaming platforms as vehicles of queerness)
  • culture (literature, film, arts; infrastructures of queerness – festivals, etc.)
  • memory politics (museification; showcasing of national and/or transnational queer histories)
  • mobility (sex tourism, asylum seeking, etc.)
  • digital cultures (networked homophobia; digital activism, etc.)

Contributions from all Social Sciences and Humanities disciplines are welcome (Political Science, Social Science, History, Economics, Cultural Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Religion Studies, Media Studies, Memory Studies, Education Science, Medical Humanities, etc.)

Timeline and Requirements: Please submit a 500-word abstract and a short bio (one PDF) by May 31, 2024 (to maryna.shevtsova@kuleuven.be; tatiana.klepikova@ur.de; emil.edenborg@gender.su.se).

In case of acceptance (communicated by late June), a 4000-word extended draft should be submitted by October 11, 2024. The editors are currently seeking funding to workshop extended drafts among contributors—should this funding be granted, the workshop will take place on October 28–29, 2024 in Leuven, Belgium.

Full papers (up to 7,000–8,000 words, incl. footnotes and references) will be due by February 1, 2025. All contributions will undergo a rigorous peer review before publication. Editors are also securing funding to publish the edited volume in open access. They will submit a proposal to an international publisher following the selection of abstracts submitted in response to the call for papers.

Contact Information

Editors: Tatiana Klepikova (University of Regensburg), Maryna Shevtsova (KU Leuven),
Emil Edenborg (University of Stockholm)

Contact Email
tatiana.klepikova@ur.de

Sunday, January 7, 2024

Call For Papers: Special Issue – #Queerness as Strength- Journal- University of Warwick



The marginalisation of LGBTIQA+ people remains a purposeful act of successive governments, institutions and individuals. The outcome has been poorer health outcomes, limited political participation, higher incarceration rates, and increased inequality and violence globally.

However, amidst this crisis LGBTIQA+ people have also created and maintained ways and means of survival. While being forced to the margins and away from the centre, queer theories and practices have emerged that challenge not only our own marginalisation but also consistently queery and question why human life is how it is. Whether surviving epidemics, persisting for equality in the law, or resisting assimilation, the power of LGBTIQA+ people is rarely collected in and across higher education disciplines. And, although often erased, a rich and vibrant life lives on in zines, the arts, the development of technologies and medicines, and in the pursuit of joy so each generation lives a life better than the one preceding it. Truly, queerness is a strength of which many should be enviable, and it deserves to be in the highest echelons of knowledge as any other discipline or practice.

This special issue aims to collect experiences, thoughts and approaches that apply queerness as a strength across any and all disciplines of practice. Ultimately, this issue aims to offer answers to the question, ‘how can the power of queers benefit wider society?’ From medicine to mathematics, to community organising and pedagogies, through to technologies and the arts, queer strengths have always improved how people live, work, connect and persist.

Paper themes may include, but are not limited to:
  • Queer informed improvements to methods and methodologies
  • Queer approaches to strengthen data collection and analysis
  • The application of queer perspectives and experiences into and across disciplines traditionally void of queer strengths
  • Commentary and ethnographies on lived/living experience of the queer researcher/practitioner/student
  • Experiences written from global majority country citizens
  • Indigenous and First Peoples perspectives
  • Perspectives of those who live or practice an intersectional queer experience
  • In/Justice in research, education and/or other institutions
  • Survival, pain, trauma, rejection and/or loss

To further the discourse and propagate related knowledge Monash University has partnered with the University of Warwick’s interdisciplinary open-access journal Exchanges (exchanges.warwick.ac.uk) to produce a special issue based around these themes. The issue, anticipated for publication in 2025, aims to contain a range of papers from scholars around the globe.

Expressions of Interest
Therefore, we invite initial expressions of interest for articles related to these themes. Expressions should contain the following information:Proposed paper title & anticipated format[1]
An outline abstract (50-200 words)
4-6 topic keywords or phrases
Contributors’ names, email addresses & associated institutions
An optional expression of interest form may be downloaded on the journal site.

All submissions of expressions of interest should be sent to Exchanges’ Editor-in-Chief (Dr Gareth J Johnson) (exchangesjournal@warwick.ac.uk) no later than Friday 1st March 2024.

Manuscript Submissions
Following the deadline, we will contact all successful authors with further information on manuscript submissions, including the final deadline, currently anticipated to be Friday 31st May 2024. All submissions should be made via Exchanges’ online submission portal.

Format Guidance
Papers for the special issue may be submitted under any of Exchanges’ article formats which include both peer-reviewed and editorially reviewed articles. Authors are strongly encouraged to review our author guidance relating to formats and their requirements before submitting their expression of interest. A formatted template is available to help authors in shaping their manuscript. Additionally, authors may find reviewing Exchanges’ policies on authorship, rights retention and conduct ahead of their submission useful:

Author Guidance: exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/guidance
Journal Policies: exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/journal-policies




Contact & Further Information
For more information, advice or any questions, please visit our website. Alternatively contact the Editor-in-Chief or special issue lead (Jacob Thomas). We look forward to reading your submissions.

Editor-in-Chief exchangesjournal@warwick.ac.uk
Special Issue Lead jacob.thomas@monash.edu

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Endnotes
[1] For format guidance see: https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/guidance#formats
[2] Editorial review includes an initial scoping consideration by the Chief Editor, to ensure general suitability for the issue, along with a later revision dialogue with the author.