Greetings from my summer hiatus in Italy (hence the shortage of posts…)
Below is the CFP for the journal Undercurrents, a student-run and collectively edited, produced, and managed journal from the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University. Please feel free to forward and post this CFP elsewhere, as appropriate, or to submit your own work! The full text of the CFP follows for easy copy-and-paste.
In May 1994, UnderCurrents released what was very likely the first ever publication wholly devoted to the intersection of queerness and nature. In the editorial essay framing that issue, Shauna M. O’Donnell and the Editorial Collective of UnderCurrents wrote, “Difficult though it may be, trying to map out a space for Queer/Nature within a politics of the environment demands the charting of courses through a discursive terrain of perils and possibilities” (2). That landmark issue explored topics as diverse as the intersection of geography and queer theory (Gordon Brent Ingram), sexual morphology and medicalization of the queer body (Morgan Holmes), ecologies of life and death (J. Michael Clark), and the nascent queer ecology (Catriona Sandilands). It also included myriad creative work that touched themes of queer memory (Ailsa Craig), alternative kinship and communities constituted in passion (Caffyn Kelly), and small town life (Deanna Bickford). The exploratory openness, breadth, and diversity of the issue signaled both the significance of ‘queer’ as a conceptual and political transformation of sexual politics and the sense that environmental politics could “no longer be an articulation of white, male, heterosexual prescriptive or descriptive privilege” (2).
Two recent edited volumes represent the breadth of queer ecological scholarship. The first, Queering the Non/Human (Giffney and Hird) explores of the theoretical, ethical, and political possibilities of an encounter between queer theory and posthumanism. The volume’s editors offer a breathless introduction to the complex diversity of work presented in the book. Most broadly, the contributors to Queering the Non/Human challenge both the meaning and uses of queer theories and the porous and contested boundary between the human and the non human. The second, Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire (Mortimer-Sandilands and Erickson) traces intersecting lines of queerness and nature, mapping a field with implications not only for environmental politics, but also for the theorization of the boundary between human and animal, considerations of nation, nature, and colonialism, and imaginations of the ecologization of desire, to name just a few. In addition to these two substantial volumes, recent articles by geographer Matthew Gandy and ecocritic Timothy Morton gesture toward the continued expansion and diversification of queer ecological thinking and research.
This issue of UnderCurrents celebrates the 20th anniversary of ‘Queer/Nature’ by inviting creative and scholarly contributions to the heterogenous field of Queer Ecologies. We envision this issue as both a retrospective moment and timely opportunity to highlight the continued ethical and political creativity that springs from thinking the queer and the ecological together.
To that end, we invite both creative and scholarly submissions that contribute to Queer Ecologies. Possible perspectives, themes, and intersections include, but are by no means limited to:
- Evolving queer theories and activisms, especially perspectives from:
- Trans Studies
- Disability Studies
- Queer of Color scholarship
- Transnational Sexuality Studies
- Feminism and Ecofeminism
- Environmental Justice
- Equity Studies
- Ecological and environmental politics
- Queer Geography, spatial politics, and urbanization
- Ecological theory and science
- Feminist science studies
- Visual and performative imaginations
- Poetic and literary imaginations
- Queer ecological fictions
- Queer time, temporality, history, and memory
- Climate change and climate justice
- Ecosexuality
- Ecocriticism and environmental literature
- Studies and theories of embodiment and corporeality
- Ecologies of decolonization and postcoloniality
Submission Guidelines
UnderCurrents welcomes both creative and scholarly work for the printed issue as well as the online version. These include essays, poetry, photographs, visual submissions, video, audio, mixed formats, and more.
The due date for submissions is October 1, 2013.
The subject line of your email should read: Submission // Queer Ecologies.
Submissions are made through the UnderCurrents website
http://pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/currents/index
Images should be at least 1600X1200pixels, 300dpi.
All text should be in .doc or .docx format, and not exceed 6,000 words. Detailed guidelines and requirements can be found on the website. Submissions that do not meet the requirements will not be considered.
For any questions please write to currents@yorku.ca.
The Editorial Collective will work closely with authors whose work has been selected.
UnderCurrents encourages authors to engage in anti-discriminatory discourse.
Visit our website for more details: http://pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/currents/index
References
Gandy, Matthew. “Queer Ecology: Nature, Sexuality, and Heterotopic Alliances.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 30.4 (2012): 727–747. Web.
Giffney, Noreen, and Myra J Hird, eds. Queering the Non/Human. Ashgate Publishing Company, 2008. Print.
Mortimer-Sandilands, Catriona, and Bruce Erickson, eds. Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2010. Print.
Morton, Timothy. “Guest Column: Queer Ecology.” PMLA 125.2 (2010): 273–282. Print.
O’Donnell, Shauna M, Undercurrents Editorial Collective. “Carrying on and Going Beyond: Some Conditions of Queer/Nature.” Undercurrents (1994): 2–3. Print.
Queer Urban Ecologies 