CALL FOR PAPERS
Genderqueer Children and Youth
A JOINT SESSION OF ARCYP AND ACCUTE AT THE CONGRESS OF THE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA, VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA
JUNE 1-8, 2013
DEADLINE: November 1, 2012
Elizabeth J. Meyer defines “genderqueer” as a term that challenges “the existing binaries of how we conceptualize and embody gender. . . . Genderqueer is an identity that has been embraced by individuals who feel that their gender identity does not fit clearly in the man/woman binary.” The Gender Equity Resource Center defines “genderqueer” as “a person who redefines or plays with gender, or who refuses gender altogether. A label for people who bend/break the rules of gender and blur the boundaries.”
For many genderqueer people their feelings of “gender dysphoria” can be traced to their earliest childhoods. Often children’s intuition of the disjunction between their bodies and their sense of their gendered selves is their very first memory (see Deborah Rudacille). Thinking about expressions and embodiments of gendered identities, it is clear that young people are of central concern to researchers and scholars.
We therefore invite papers about children and youth who are “queering gender” and about representations of and by those young people–including, but not limited to, “genderqueer,” “gender non-conforming,” “transgender,” “gender-gifted,” “polygender,” “genderless,” “gender-bending,” and “gender-blending” children and youth. Given that the lived experiences and mediated encounters of genderqueer young people are such a productive space of inquiry, we are interested in all research at the intersections of gender, identity, and childhood, and we encourage proposals from a wide range of academic disciplines.
Following the instructions under Option # 1 at www.accute.ca/generalcall.html, send your 700-word proposal (or 8-10 page double-spaced paper), a Proposal Submissions Information Sheet, and a 100-word abstract and 50-word bio-bibliographical statement, as three attachments to an email addressed to admin@arcyp.ca by November 1, 2012.
NOTES: You must be a current member of ARCYP or ACCUTE to submit to this session. Rejected submissions will not be moved into the general “pool” of ACCUTE submissions.