Feminism, fashion, and flare: Call for submissions

Passing this along... The deadline is fast approaching, so write speedily!

Call for Papers: Feminism, Fashion and Flair: Confronting Hegemony with Style (Deadline: 9/15/08)

We are soliciting essays for an anthology on gender politics and pop culture trends. We’re looking for intellectual depth, political passion, and writing that snaps..

Fashion is a powerful way we express our politics, personalities, and preferences for who and how we love. Yet fashion can also repress freedom and sexual expression. Fashion encourages profound creativity, rebellion, and defiant self-definition while simultaneously controlling and disciplining the body. Fashion creates collective identity, but also constrains individual voice. In other words, fashion contains the paradoxical potential for pleasure and subjugation, expression and conformity.

We are interested in essays that take up questions of gender with special attention to race, class, sexuality, age, and ethnicity. This collection blends theory and pop culture analysis in exciting ways, focusing on contemporary trends and controversies.

Although we are open to ideas, we are specifically seeking essays on the following topics:

Issues of race, class, gender and sexuality through style and fashion
Bois, grrls, trannies and styles of queerness
Hardcore, punk, and hip hop: constructing masculinities through fashion
Body art and cultural appropriations (e.g., Arabic-style tattoos, etc.)
Debates in body modification
Plastic surgery and re-fashioning the body
Hipster slumming and “gentrification”: tensions of authenticity and irony
Vintage and thrift fashion: nostalgia and class signifiers

Deadline for abstracts is September 15, 2008.
Format for abstracts: Word document, double-spaced, between 300 and 500 words. Include contact information and short bio.

Send to: [email protected]

Shira Tarrant
Assistant Professor
Women’s Studies Department
California State University, Long Beach

Marjorie Jolles
Assistant Professor
Women’s & Gender Studies Program
Roosevelt University