Queering Middle Eastern Cyberscapes
Special issue of Journal of Middle Eastern Womenâ??s Studies
<http://sites.google.com/site/queeringmideasterncyberscapes/home>http://sites.google.com/site/queeringmideasterncyberscapes/home
Guest Editors: Noor Al-Qasimi and Adi Kuntsman
Call for Papers
Digital media and cybercultures have long been
explored as fields of identity formation,
cultural contestations, and political tensions.
Digital mediascapes have also been of particular
interest to scholars of gender and sexuality for
their potential to transform some gendered,
racial, and sexual power structures while
reaffirming, and often violently reinforcing,
others. This special issue of Journal of Middle
Eastern Womenâ??s Studies aims to bring feminist
and queer analysis of media and communication
technologies (the Internet, mobile phones,
surveillance technologies, digital television,
and telecommunication) to the field of the
Middle East as both a geo-cultural space and a political entity.
Our intention is to examine the intersections,
tensions, and co-constitutions of queer
sexualities and communication technologies;
queerness as a form of digitalized affect and as
a political practice; mediated violence and
violence of mediation; new technological
frontiers and frontiers of identities; and
practices of everyday use and digitalized
imaginaries. We hope to explore these and other
phenomena as they emerge in Middle Eastern
countries and communities and their diasporas.
In recent years, much work has focused on media
in the Middle East, and gender/sexuality in the
Middle East; however, there is a paucity of
scholarship on the intersection of these fields.
Still less work has emphasized queering as a
political metaphor in relation to the field of
Middle East Studies. The aim of this special
issue is to acknowledge the utility of a
postcolonial queer critique as applied to this region and its diasporas.
We are soliciting work that engages with the
intersection of media and sexuality with
reference to the Middle East. Possible topics thus include:
Surveillance, war on terror
The policing of sexuality
Orientalism in new media cultures
Governmentality, biopolitics, and the Middle East
Sexuality and media censorship
Media technologies (e.g., YouTube, mobile
phones, bluetooth, picture/video messaging) and queerness
Queer and/or social networking websites (e.g., Facebook, MySpace)
Queer Middle Eastern diasporas in cyberspace
HIV/AIDS-related online communities
Homophobia
LGBT and NGO activism
Drag, cross-dressing, butch/femme identities, other queer subjectivities
Gay imperialism
We welcome abstracts of articles to be
considered for inclusion in this special volume.
Please send a bio and a 500-word abstract
detailing the topic of your article, the overall
context, your material, methodology, and
theoretical argument by the 1st of February 2010
to
<mailto:(qmecissue /at/ googlemail.com)>(qmecissue /at/ googlemail.com)
. Authors will be notified by the 15th of
February 2010 of the outcome of their
submissions. If accepted, full papers should be
submitted by the 1st of July 2010. Papers will
then be reviewed individually in the standard double-blind review process.
We also welcome shorter pieces of creative or
analytical writing (up to 1000 words, or 4000
words for interviews) or visual material on the
theme of this special volume. These pieces may
be topical and/or polemical. They are not sent
out to be peer-reviewed but are selected by the
editors of the issue. If you would like to
submit a short piece, please contact us to discuss the format and deadlines.
Abstracts and inquiries about this issue should
be sent to <mailto:(qmecissue /at/ googlemail.com)>(qmecissue /at/ googlemail.com) .
