[Bilimsel Haber] CFP: Graduating Gender: Queer Grad Students Reading Culture Collection (2/30/07; collection)

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

Collection: Graduating Gender: Queer Grad Students Reading Culture

I am seeking submissions for an edited collection of graduate student
essays on queer/trans theory, gender issues, and cultural studies.

This collection will focus particularly on the unique role that LGBT
grad students play in the analysis of culture, the various roles and
spaces (including spaces of exile) that they inhabit within the academy,
and the anxiety of studying queer texts within 'straight' English and
Comparative Lit departments. What is it like to be 'the only gay in the
village,' the sole queer grad student who must 'represent' politically
within a department? What types of queer graduate communities exist,
either in metropolitan or rural universities, and what happens when a
gay, bi, or trans student simply wants to write on canonical texts (or
only wants to write on queer theory when his/her peers are busy studying
Chaucer and Milton?)

All submissions should keep these questions in mind, and
autobiographical and personal-inflected essays are strongly encouraged.
The collection aims to present evocative, precise, and sharp readings of
contemporary cultural texts (novels, poetry, film, tv) from LGBT grad
students, especially those working within English, CompLit, and Women's
Studies departments, although submissions from other disciplines will be
considered. Each article should have a solid theoretical basis, and
should interrogate specific literary or cinematic works, but should also
be written as much as possible from a personal perspective. How is your
work different because of your in-between status as a grad student,
because of your various experiences within departments that may be
either magnanimous, neutral, or outright hostile to your sexuality or
gender? What would you say if there were no rules, no committees, no
supervisors, and no boundaries--what would you say, and why?

I would like to receive abstracts by Feb 30, 2007 at the latest,
although if there is considerable interest I will extend the deadline.
Please enclose a current CV as well as a brief bio. If you feel that
your work is particularly controversial, and fear that it might even
jeopardize future job prospects or relations with your department (as
all great work probably will), you are welcome to publish under a first
name, pseudonym, or simply to include no specific information about your
institution.

Email submissions to:  graduating_gender_at_hotmail.com.  Please use
.rtf files for your attachments, as they are much smaller and easier to
view on both mac and pc.

You will be notified that your submission has been received, and I
should be able to let everyone know a month after the deadline (Mar
30/07) which abstracts have been accepted. I have a publisher in mind,
and will contact them with a proposal once all of the abstracts have
been received. Since university publishers are often back-logged, the
collection will probably go to press in late-2008.  Keep this in mind,
especially if you are looking to publish right away, since these
projects take time to develop.

JM Battis
Instructor/Doctoral Candidate, Dept of English
Simon Fraser University
graduating_gender_at_hotmail.com

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