[Discussion] CFP: Anthology on Disability and Masculinities (7/30/05; collection)

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

From: J Ferris <jvferris@wisc.edu>

CALL FOR PAPERS: Anthology on DISABILITY AND MASCULINITIES
(Our apologies for cross-postings. Please circulate widely. Thanks.)

We are seeking submissions for an edited volume on Disability and 
Masculinities.
While there has been a wide range of writing and research on gender that 
takes
account of disabled women's perspectives, there is relatively little work on
disabled masculinities. An analysis of how the experience of disability is
affected by the negotiation of masculinity and vice versa would provide an
important missing link in disability studies. This gap in disability studies
scholarship was starkly apparent with the recent publication of the
groundbreaking volume Gendering Disability, in which only a few chapters 
dealt
explicitly with the intersection of disability and masculinities.

This imbalance should be redressed for several reasons. First, we need to
document the lived experiences of disabled men in order to show the 
common and
diverse everyday prejudices and barriers by which they are disabled and the
various forms of response and resistance to these disabling factors. 
Also, it is
vital to consider how disabled masculinities are constructed in particular
contexts, including work/career environments, school settings, the academic
world, intimate and romantic/sexual situations. Especially relevant are
interpersonal relations, sexuality and the negotiation of sexually intimate
relationships: how do the above barriers and prejudices and those exclusions
specifically constructed around various forms of intimacy and sexual 
identity
play out in these important arenas?

Second, we seek to apprehend the ways in which modes of cultural 
representation
such as literature, film and other communications media represent 
disabled men.
How are disabled men characterized in these various media? How does the
construction of their characterizations play out against hegemonic forms of
masculinity? Do they play foil to the representation of typical 
masculinity? And
what are the existential, psychological, social and cultural consequences of
these characterizations of disabled masculinity? How can negative
representations of disabled masculinity be resisted, challenged and 
eventually
transformed?

Third, we need to understand how disabled masculinities articulate with the
hierarchies of genders (especially the subordination of women) and other
masculinities (especially hegemonic forms that tend to oppress). Knowing
the ways in which disabled masculinities can both comply with hegemonic 
forms of
masculinity in their oppression of other genders and social groups and 
how they
can also sometimes diverge from hegemonic masculinities may be useful in the
ongoing struggle to transform gender relations. Disability studies should
especially be interested in the question, what kinds of alternative
masculinities do disabled men construct? Are these masculinities 
pragmatic in
the face of multiple barriers in everyday life? Do they resist, challenge,
invert or subvert the current hegemonic gender binary?

In this volume we also welcome comparative perspectives on the 
construction of
masculinities, including cross-cultural and cross-impairment approaches.
Different impairments both in contemporary Western societies and across
non-Western societies and cultures call into play divergent beliefs and 
values
that often impact differently on men and women. Examination of the cultural
understanding and response to a particular impairment will be enriched by
analysis of how different gender beliefs, expectations and practices in a
society articulate with the values that underlie the construction of 
disability.
As documented particularly in Western cultures, women are often
disproportionately excluded from particular cultural domains because of the
interplay of the beliefs regarding their particular impairments with 
feminine
expectations. But this is not always the case (see for example Ablon's 
research
on the differential access to intimate relationships for men and women with
neurofibromatosis, 1996, 1999). Any interrogation of disabled 
masculinities in
terms of differential access needs to ask: How are disabled men 
differentially
included or excluded in particular cultural domains vis-à-vis disabled 
women,
given the divisive terms that organize gender? If included, do the cultural
terms of their inclusion exclude disabled women? We also need analyses of
multiple identity intersections and oppressions in the lives of disabled 
men.
For example, how does the construction of masculinity differ for 
disabled black
men from that of disabled white men? For disabled gay men from that of 
disabled
straight men? Etc. How does a hierarchization of disabled masculinities 
play out
in particular cases?

Finally, we strongly urge methodological and theoretical diversity in the
scholarship and research on disability and masculinities. We believe that a
diversity of methodological and conceptual approaches can illuminate the
multiple ways that disabled masculinities are lived, constructed, performed,
represented, characterized, enacted and practiced. We seek scholars and
researchers utilizing methods and theories from social science, 
ethnographic and
humanities perspectives or any combination thereof.

Suggested topics and questions for papers include (list is not exhaustive):
-- Complex phenomenological reflection on the lived experience of disabled
masculinities.
-- Ethnographic research on disabled masculinities.
-- Analyses of representations of disabled masculinity in literature, 
film and
other communications media.
-- In what ways does language inform, perform, label, and interpret the
intersection of disability and masculinities?
-- The intersection of female masculinities and disability.
-- In what ways do class, race, age and other social categories of 
experience
and practice affect disabled masculinities and vice versa?
-- The construction of disabled masculinities in the face of everyday
prejudices.
-- The construction of disabled masculinities in particular everyday 
contexts:
in work/career environments, school settings and the academic world, sexual
situations, etc.
-- How are disabled masculinities constructed in the face of hegemonic
masculinities? How are they complicit with hegemonic masculinities? How 
do they
diverge? How do disabled men resist hegemonic forms of masculinity? What 
kinds
of alternative masculinities are constructed by disabled men?

Please send ideas and abstracts (no more than 500 words) to both Russell
Shuttleworth (shuttleruss@juno.com) and Jim Ferris (jvferris@wisc.edu) 
by July
30.



 From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List