[Commlist] Call for Papers: Northern Lights: Film & Media Studies Yearbook (Special Issue: ‘Transforming Genitals in Culture and Media’)

Call for Papers: Northern Lights: Film & Media Studies Yearbook


Special Issue: ‘Transforming Genitals in Culture and Media’


Abstracts (500 word) should be sent to (marija.geigerzeman /at/ pilar.hr) 
<mailto:(marija.geigerzeman /at/ pilar.hr)> by Monday 17 November 2022


Notifications of acceptance will be sent by Monday 24 November 2022


Full papers due for peer review by Monday 30 January 2023


Approximate date of the final manuscript delivery 30 April 2023


View the full CFP here>>

https://www.intellectbooks.com/northern-lights-film-media-studies-yearbook#call-for-papers 
<https://www.intellectbooks.com/northern-lights-film-media-studies-yearbook#call-for-papers>


Since the 1980s, research into the body has moved it from the position 
of ‘an absent presence’ (Shilling 1993) to an important and stimulating 
topic for the social sciences and humanities (Shilling 2005). Despite 
this we have not paid sufficient theoretical or ethnographical attention 
to genitals, despite their social and cultural importance. Genitals are 
attached to multifarious meanings, ideologies, connotations, 
inscriptions, norms, practices, technologies, imaginaries, feelings, 
experiences and representations (Blackman 2008).


Genitals are anatomical and biological but can also be (like age) a 
‘social organizing principle’, based on which individuals build their 
identities and gain/lose power (Calasanti and Slevin 2006). In the 
gender binary paradigm genitals are understood as male or female, 
aligning with gender identity. Mainstream cultures still insist on the 
idea of the connection of genitalia and gender (Jones and Callahan 
2022). At birth gender is assigned based on genitals, beginning a 
lifelong process of binary gender differentiation (Wade and Marx Ferree 
2015). Transgender, intersex and non-binary people are leading the way 
in questioning the gender binary system: demonstrating, advocating and 
indeed embodying fresh understandings of relations between genitalia and 
gender that are far more complex than simple binaries.


Historically, apart from their social importance, genitals also have 
prominent mythological, religious, ethical and cultural meanings, from 
adoration to ridicule, from pride to shame, from public display to 
concealment, and unrestrained expression to discipline. They are often 
positioned in terms of dualisms: femininities/masculinities, youth/old 
age, beauty/ugliness, pleasure/pain, hatred/love, disability/capacity, 
intimacy/violation, private/public, etc. They are ordinary and 
ubiquitous but also controversial, and fraught with anxiety.


This Special Issue will examine how culture and media intersect with, 
consider, or work through genital transformations. We seek contributions 
that consider how genital transformations are represented visually and 
textually – in film, television, social media, gaming, print, etc., and 
for what cultural reasons? We seek papers that address transformations 
of genitals that may be metaphoric, mythical, representational, 
surgical, phenomenological, etc. Intersectional, feminist and 
interdisciplinary approaches are encouraged, and Global South stories 
are particularly welcome.


Research into social and cultural meanings as well as media 
representations of genitalia (male, female, intersex) is still 
considered a provocative but at the same time an extremely potent 
interdisciplinary field that enables the 
establishment/expansion/strengthening of a platform for dialogues and 
cooperation between different disciplines and perspectives – body 
studies, media studies, gender studies, women’s studies, men’s studies, 
LGBTQ studies, cultural studies, fashion studies, sociology and a number 
of sociological sub-disciplines (sociology of gender, sociology of the 
body, sociology of the media, etc.), feminism, etc. Precisely because of 
the emphasised interdisciplinarity, academics from different 
disciplinary/professional backgrounds can participate in the realization 
of the topics.


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