[ecrea] CfP Special Issue: Sex & Sexualities in Popular Culture - Feminist Perspectives

Call for Papers: Sex and Sexualities in Popular Culture: Feminist
Perspectives

A special-themed issue of Networking Knowledge, the journal of the
MeCCSA-PGN

Edited by Milena Popova and Bethan Jones

Deadline for abstracts: 30th December 2015

Popular culture, as can be seen through the GamerGate controversy for
one example, has a profound impact on feminist issues and discourses.
Representations of sex and sexualities influence public opinion and
individual attitudes and perceptions. Discussions - in both media and
academia - are continuing to take place about the impact of Fifty
Shades, sexism and misogyny in computer game and comic book fandom, the
sexualisation of girls and the sexual desires of both young and adult
women. Moral panics abound surrounding Fifty Shades and the “irrational”
behaviour of One Direction fans, while LGBTQIA+ identities and
sexualities are often represented tokenistically at best. Creative
practitioners can easily come under fire for poor representations of sex
and sexualities, as evidenced most recently by the reception of Joss
Whedon's treatment of Black Widow in The Avengers: Age of Ultron;
equally they can be celebrated for their efforts, as was the case with
Bioware's inclusion of a consent negotiation scene in Dragon Age:
Inquisition.

Following a successful one-day symposium on this theme in November 2015,
we invite proposals for a special issue of Networking Knowledge - the
Journal of the MeCCSA PGN. As with the symposium, we wish to open up
debates and explore the nuances of sex and sexualities within popular
culture. To that end, possible topics include but are not limited to:

  *

    Representations of women's desire and sexualities in popular culture

  *

    Non-cis- and heteronormative sexualities in popular culture,
    especially beyond "gay and lesbian"

  *

    Representations of sex work

  *

    Infertility and sexual dysfunction

  *

    Sexual intersections: race, disability, religion, class and
    socioeconomic status, gender

  *

    Sex and sexualities in gaming

  *

    Sexual pleasure in popular culture

  *

    Invisibility: (a)sexualities unrepresented

  *

    Sex, sexualities and social media

  *

    Sex and sexualities in fan and transformative works

Please send 300 word abstracts for papers of 5,000 to 6,000 words, along
with a short author biography, by 30th December 2015. Please email these
to guest editors (milena2.popova /at/ live.uwe.ac.uk)
<mailto:(milena2.popova /at/ live.uwe.ac.uk)>and (bethanvjones /at/ hotmail.com)
<mailto:(bethanvjones /at/ hotmail.com)>.  If you have questions about
Networking Knowledge in general, please contact the Journal Editor,
Simon Dawes at (simondawes0 /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(simondawes0 /at/ gmail.com)>.
Final, selected, articles will be due by the end of March 2016.




Milena Popova
PhD Researcher
Digital Cultures Research Centre
University of the West of England, Bristol

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