Editor: Trystan T. Cotten
Deadline for abstracts: January 15, 2009
Deadline for complete essays: April 1, 2009
Email: Trystan38@hotmail.com
Concepts of “migration� and “travel� abound in the field of Transgender Studies. Many transgender cultural productions explore questions of identity and transition trajectories using metaphors of home, displacement, relocation, etc. To our knowledge there are no full length text(s) or monographs that treat the many possibilities of critical, scholarly investigation of this subject in TG history, identity, and art/cultural production. We are proposing a volume of criticism to fill the void and invite contributions for an interdisciplinary collection on the topic. Broadly conceived Trans/Gender Migrations will explore, trace, and map the myriad meanings and functions of “migration� and “travel� in transgender cultural production, politics, and identity/subjectivity, including related concepts of movement and location like space (and spatiality), place, border(s), bridge(s), home, expatriation, displacement, relocation, etc.
We welcome essays from all academic disciplines and scholarly fields and provide some suggestions. Essays might examine these concepts and metaphors in transgender identities (and subjectivities), politics, and cultural productions like literature, film, dance and other performance arts, photography, music, body-art, etc. Or, how TG Studies is itself an interdisciplinary field of methodologies, theories, concepts, and knowledges that are imported from other disciplinary and artistic sites. When and where do western definitions of transgender (and transsexuality) fail to translate across cultural and geographical borders? Other possible topics include exploring the multiple crossings of gender/sex transitions: how the crossing of borders of sex/gender entails other shifts in identity and subjectivity like social class, race and ethnicity, national and religious identity, etc. What additional borders are crossed in sex/gender transitions? Essays might also examine the surgical re-mapping and re-routing of bodily tissues, nerves, organs, and chemicals on TG/TS bodies. Other topics for exploration might include how sex/gender transitions effect migrations to new sexual and political communities; how the politics of race, class, gender, (trans)sexuality intersect with or manifest in immigration policies of the state; and what politics of sex, gender, (trans)sexuality are operative in the forced displacement and relocation of peoples.
Please send a 500 word abstract, working title, and brief biographical statement (MS Word or PDF) to Trystan Cotten by January 15, 2009 at: Trystan38@hotmail.com. Please send a brief biographical statement along with your abstract. Completed essays (formatted in Chicago guidelines) are due by April 1, 2009.
