CFP: Disability, Work and Representation: New Perspectives (DSQ Fall 2017)

Call for Papers
Disability, Work and Representation: New Perspectives
Special Issue: Disability Studies Quarterly (Fall 2017)
Editors: David Turner, Kirsti Bohata, Steven Thompson, Swansea University

In/ability to work plays a critical role in definitions of dis/ability, but the complexities of the relationship between people with disabilities and the world of work have only recently started to gain scholarly attention.  Contributions are sought for a special issue of Disability Studies Quarterly
that will showcase new interdisciplinary perspectives on disability, work and its representation in both contemporary and historical perspective. The issue will take a long and interdisciplinary view of the relationship between disability and work and encourages contributions that explore
different national experiences and impairment perspectives. We aim to foster critical thinking about how dis/ability has been defined in relation to work and about how factors such as changing hiring processes, legislation and working environments have impacted upon participation. Contributions are
also sought that will explore ways in which disability has been represented in relation to work culturally and artistically, or the impact of literary, artistic or media representations on policy. Contributors are invited to think about work broadly, to include paid and unpaid employment, emotional and intellectual as well as physical labor. Subjects might include, but are
not limited to:

•       Changing historical experiences of disability and work
•       Dis/ability and the aesthetics of work
•       The impact of age, gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity on experiences and employment prospects of workers with disabilities
•       The role of economic systems in the inclusion or exclusion of workers with disabilities
•       The relationship between work and citizenship
•       Cultural representations of disability and un/employment
•       Disability and employment laws
•       Disability and unpaid work
•       Disability and occupational health/medicine
•       Rehabilitation and returning to work
•       Disability and labor relations
•       Current and historical perspectives on welfare and work

Please send an abstract (max 200 words) and a short biography (100 words) to Professor David Turner (d.m.turner@swansea.ac.uk) by July 1st 2016. The final deadline for submission for articles selected for inclusion in the Special Issue (max. 8000 words) will be January 31st 2017 with publication scheduled for September 2017. Final acceptance of manuscripts is subject to peer review.

CFP: Voices of Madness, Voices of Mental Ill-Health (15-16 September 2016)

from Steven Taylor:

Voices of Madness, Voices of Mental ill-health
Centre for Health Histories, University of Huddersfield
15th- 16th Sept 2016

In the thirty years since Roy Porter called on historians to lower their gaze so that they might better understand patient-doctor roles in the past, historians have sought to place the voices of previously, silent, marginalised and disenfranchised individuals at the heart of their analyses.

Contemporaneously, the development of service user groups and patient consultations have become an important feature of the debates and planning related to current approaches to prevention, care and treatment. The aim of this conference is to further explore and reveal how the voices of those living with and treating mental illness have been recorded and expressed.  We hope to consider recent developments in these areas with a view to facilitating an interdisciplinary discourse around historical perspectives of mental health and illness.

The organisers invite proposals for 20 minutes on the themes of voices of madness and mental ill health under headings including but not limited to:

Oral history and testimony

Mental ill-health and community care

Mental ill-health and institutional histories

The role of informal carers

The growth of the mental health professions

Mental ill health and the voice(s) of adolescentsand children

Museums and the ‘heritage’ of mental ill health

The literature (fiction and non-fiction) of mental ill health

Language of madness (if not covered by ‘heritage’)

Dissenting voices

Appropriation of voices

Absent voices

Voices and art

Voices and stigma

The voices of mental ill-health on TV and radio

Individual, activist and social media

For more information contact Dr Rob Ellis (r.ellis@hud.ac.uk), Dr Sarah Kendal (s.kendal@hud.ac.uk) or Dr Steven Taylor (s.taylor@hud.ac.uk). To submit a paper proposal (250 words maximum) or express an interest, please contact Steve Taylor by 14 March 2015.

We hope to offer some bursaries for postgraduate and early career researchers.

CFP: Disability and Deafness in Literature for Young People (Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies special issue)

CFP: Disability and Deafness in Literature for Young People (Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies special issue)

Guest editors: Chloë Hughes and Elizabeth A. Wheeler

This special issue of the JLCDS aims to bring together an international and  multidisciplinary base of readers and writers who explore disability in  literature published for young people.

While disability and deafness have often featured in literature for young people, their most usual role has been as a “narrative prosthesis” supporting the storyline. Disability and Deaf literature for young readers has boomed in the twenty-first century, including bestsellers like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The Fault in Our Stars, Wonder, Wonderstruck, Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and Out of My Mind, as well as a growing collection of texts written in or with Blissymbolics, Braille, Sign Language, or in tactile, textile, interactive, and digital formats. This special issue reconsiders the history and current urgency of disability and deafness in literature for young readers in light of this twenty-first century publishing boom.

Children are often on the front lines of the struggle over the meanings of disability. For young people both with and without disabilities, the works they encounter provide long-lasting frames of reference for understanding bodymind diversity. It is especially important that scholars well versed in disability and Deaf justice, theory, and lived experience critique this canon.

We seek articles on a wide variety of genres, including fantasy, dystopias, science fiction, graphic memoirs and novels, biography, digital forms like blogs and vlogs, “misfit romance,” “sick lit,” and superhero stories. Disabilities that only exist in fictional worlds are fair game. The guest editors are interested in submissions that cross-examine race, class, gender, and sexuality as well as disability and deafness and represent a wide cross-section of international literatures and ethnic groups. We welcome proposals from disability and Deaf studies scholars (especially those who may not have previously written about literature for young people), but also encourage submissions from scholars of other disciplines who might lend their perspectives on using literature for young people with representations of disability to explore bodymind diversity with children and adolescents. We are also interested in intergenerational dialogues, interviews with authors and illustrators who have included protagonists with disabilities or published books for young people in accessible formats, as well as reviews of recently published young adult literature that features protagonists with disabilities. We particularly encourage submissions from scholars with the same disability as the protagonist.

Examples of content foci for this special issue of the JLCDS include, but are not limited to:
• Disabled and Deaf characters challenging normalcy
• Fantastic Freaks and Critical Crips in countercultural texts for young people
• Aesthetic/artistic representations of disability in picturebooks
• Literature for young people by Disabled or Deaf authors and illustrators
• Beyond “narrative prosthesis”
• Children’s and Young Adult Literature in accessible formats
• The role /aesthetics of disability accommodations in texts for young people
• Visibility or invisibility of Disability Rights in literature for young people
• Intersectionality: race, gender, class, sexual orientation, gender identity
• Representations of chronic illness and mental health
• Biographical writing for young people—what is / is not included?
• Critiques of didactic texts for young people on disability
• Interviews of authors/ illustrators
• Reviews of recently published children’s and young adult literature with representations of disability

Timetable:
April 15, 2016: submission of a 500 word proposal for articles or 150 word proposal for reviews and a one-page curriculum vitae to guest editors at hughesc@mail.wou.edu and ewheeler@uoregon.edu.
May 15, 2016: prospective authors notified of proposal status.
November 1, 2016: final versions of selected papers due to editors.
February 1, 2017: finalists selected. Decisions and revisions on submissions sent to authors.
May 1, 2017: final, revised papers due from finalists.

CFP: Disability and the American Counterculture

Spotted on DS-HUM:

Special issue CFP: Disability and the American Counterculture
Guest edited by Stella Bolaki and Chris Gair

The American Counterculture has a complex relationship with disability. At
its heart is the reinvention of the term freak that serves as an early
example of empowering, though not unproblematic, appropriation of what had
previously been a derogatory term. Freak Out!, the debut album by The
Mothers of Invention—labelled a “monstrosity” by Frank Zappa—is a prime
example of the association of freakery with the forms of avant-garde
experimentation representative of one form of countercultural practice. In
addition, representations of disability and illness occur repeatedly in
countercultural work: the asylum and hospital become central tropes for
examinations of the relationship between sanity and madness in Allen
Ginsberg’s “Howl” and Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, while
canonical Beat/countercultural novels such as Jack Kerouac’s Desolation
Angels and Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America and movies such as
Richard Rush’s Psych-Out feature disabled characters not only to derive
rhetorical force in their critique of hegemonic culture, but also to
question core countercultural ideologies. In terms of aesthetics, William
Burroughs’ experimental “cut-up technique” has been discussed in the
context of his interest in virology and Andy Warhol’s work of trauma,
injury and violence alongside what Tobin Siebers has called “disability
aesthetics”. More recent work, such as E.L. Doctorow’s novel Homer and
Langley, the Hollywood film Forrest Gump and Simi Linton’s memoir My Body
Politic, examines the connection between disability and the counterculture
through different lenses and with various aims.

What do perspectives informed by disability studies have to offer to
typical readings of the American counterculture and its fundamental ideals
of movement (both geographical and ideological), youth and vitality? In
what ways did the American counterculture and the disability movement
approach notions of the “normal” and the “abnormal” body? Beat and
countercultural writers and artists have been criticised for their
romanticised view of other cultures and for appropriating and shedding
roles and personas from various marginalised groups at a dizzying pace. How
different was the appropriation of disability to the American
counterculture’s interest in other cultures (Eastern, African American,
Native American) and their potential for constructing a subversive
identity? What are the legacies of the American counterculture and its
various discourses and styles of liberation for contemporary disability
life writing, arts and activism? With such questions in mind, the co-
editors invite proposals on an array of topics which include (but are not
limited to) the following:

•perspectives from disability studies/theory on iconic as well as
understudied Beat texts and countercultural ideals more broadly
•challenges to “normalcy” from disability movements and the American
counterculture (comparative perspectives/debates)
•disability as theme and/or aesthetic in countercultural writing, art, film
and music or in more recent works that reference the American counterculture
•appropriation and reinvention of the term “freak” by the counterculture
•approaches to spectacle, the stare, the performative, and fashion in
American counterculture and disability cultures/arts
•disability in the sixties-era communes and communal living groups
•feminist disability studies and the counterculture
•crip perspectives on the American counterculture
•legacies of the American counterculture and countercultural ideals,
practices and styles for disability writing, arts, and activism

Discussions of specific literary and cultural texts are invited, but
preference will be given to projects that use individual texts as vehicles
to address broader cultural debates and theoretical inquiries related to
disability studies and the American counterculture. A one-page proposal and
a one-page curriculum vitae should be emailed to S.Bolaki@kent.ac.uk and
Chris.Gair@glasgow.ac.uk by the end of July 2013. Finalists will be
selected by 1st October 2013, and full drafts of articles will be due on
1st March 2014.

CFP: VariAbilities (4-7 July 2013, Emory University)

From DS-Hum:

VariAbilities: A conference on the history and representation of the body in its diversity

Emory University

4-7 July 2013

It is no longer useful to distinguish people by the binary opposition able-bodied/disabled. We now recognize people on a continuum of ability on which no-one is entirely able-bodied or entirely disabled. But was it always true? And if it is true now, does this require that we reconsider the use of binary oppositions when understanding people and their capabilities? VariAbilit(ies) is an interdisciplinary conference which will explore these questions. It will focus on the body and how it was treated and represented throughout history. Subject areas will include: Literary representations The Asylum The History of Poor Relief Gender/ Sexuality Disability and Aesthetics Disability and Race And anything else you are interested in

Please send abstracts (300 Words by 30 October 2012) to:

Chris Mounsey University of Winchester chris.mounsey@winchester.ac.uk

Paul Kelleher Emory University pkelleh@emory.edu

The CFP on Facebook.

Conference announcements on Twitter.

CFP: Commemorating the Disabled Soldier (Ypres, Belgium, 4-6 November 2013)

[From H-Disability]

Call for papers

Commemorating the disabled soldier: Comparative approaches to the history of war, disability and remembrance, 1914-1940

International conference (Ypres, Belgium, 4th-6th November 2013) & special issue First World War Studies

Organized/edited by Prof. Pieter Verstraete (KU Leuven), Dr. Martina Salvante (Trinity College Dublin) & Prof. Julie Anderson (University of Kent) – with the financial support of the Province West-Flanders, the In Flanders Fields Museum, the Centre d’Histoire des Sociétés, des Sciences et des Conflits & the Fund for Scientific Research Flanders.

2014 will mark 100 years since the outbreak of the Great War. On the occasion of this important anniversary the Centre for the History of Education of the KU Leuven (Belgium), the Centre for War Studies of Trinity College Dublin (Ireland) and the Centre for the History of Medicine of the University of Kent (United Kingdom) propose to organize an international conference aimed at reflecting on the impact of that specific event on soldiers’ bodies and minds. Millions of men all over the globe, in fact, returned home limbless, sightless, deaf, disfigured or mentally distressed.

In the last decades disability history has attracted an increasing interest in the scholarly community, thus becoming a well-established field, which has been highlighting, among others, the experiences of impaired people, medical and rehabilitative techniques, charitable institutions and welfare measures, public reception and private emotions. The First World War has somehow represented a watershed both in the visibility and the treatment of impairment and disablement owing to the massive amount of men who suffered physical injuries or mental disorder symptoms as a consequence of the conflict. These men happened, therefore, to embody the destructiveness of war and performed as human and living ‘sites of memory’. Because of their heralded heroism in the battlefields, shattered soldiers, however, were commonly considered worthy and in need of an (economic and medical) assistance that disabled civilians had not experienced beforehand. In spite of such considerations and of the yet numerous studies focusing on the interrelation between war and disablement (Julie Anderson, Joanna Burke, Ana Carden-Coyne, Deborah Cohen, David Gerber, Sabine Kienitz, Marina Larsson just to mention few), there has never been organized so far an international conference dealing exclusively with such a topic in an historical and comparative perspective.

Disabled veterans have always been involved in the commemorations of the Great War, but they have never been the focal point of any celebration. That is why we believe that the upcoming centenary of 2014 may provide us with an important opportunity to reflect upon the impact of war on the individual lives of those (and their families) who came back impaired, as well as on the institutions (charities, governmental agencies, ministries, associations, etc.) taking charge of their care and assistance during and after the conflict. Hence, we’d like to explore the question of the political, social, medical and cultural legacies of war disability in postwar society. The conference as well as the special issue will be specifically interested in strengthening comparative and transnational approaches. Contributions on rather unknown case studies and geographical/national areas are especially welcomed.

The gathering of international scholars coming from different countries would be, therefore, the occasion for in-depth discussions, reviews of previous studies, and outlining of future research perspectives. Potential topics might include, but are not limited to: medicine/surgery and treatment, rehabilitation and vocational retraining, associations and self-advocacy, charities and care-giving, war pensions, experience and memory, visual and textual representation (of the disabled themselves), suffering and pain, the place and function of the disabled body at inter-war commemorative activities, the international shaping of a global discourse on the mutilated body, the influence of war-related discourse on the over-all care for the disabled in general etc. Although the main conference will be focused on the First World War the call for papers, however, also is open for contributions that deal with the impact of subsequent conflicts on the soldier’s body and mind.

Besides the organization of an international conference which will be held on November 4th-6th 2013 the organizers also envisage first of all a special issue in the International Journal of the Society for First World War Studies. The Editor-in-chief already has approved the idea and the issue would be published in 2014. Furthermore, the organizers aim at publishing a book that would gather some/all of the papers presented at the conference. That would be the first book presenting a wide array of (trans)national cases on the subject of disability and the Great War, by getting together, thus, diverse hypotheses, methodologies and sources; In this way it would make European scholars as well as European citizens aware of the existence of disabled soldiers from the Great War and their particular place in the upcoming centennial celebration.

Practical & financial information

We are very pleased to announce that we will be able to accept and reimburse 13 scholars a sum of maximum 500 euro’s to cover their travel expenses to and from Ypres/Belgium where the conference will be held. Besides that the organizational committee will also pay for the accommodation (2 nights). Included also is a visit to the world famous and recently renovated In Flanders Fields Museum as well as a guided tour on the second day to the Western front line.

Please do also note that after the international conference “Commemorating the disabled soldier” will be ended, there will be another conference organized dealing especially with the relation between medicine and the Great War. Closely linked to this event two exhibitions will take place in Ghent and Ypres on the history of psychiatry and medicine in relation to the Great War. Unfortunately we will not be able to pay for additional nights.

Time line & deadlines

Submission of abstract and short CV: December 1st 2012 – Abstract=600 words/CV=Maximum 20 lines
Letter of acceptance (abstract): January 2013
First draft of the manuscript: June 1st 2013
Comments by the editors: September 1st 2013
Conference at Ypres: November 4th-6th 2013
Second draft of the manuscript: December 1st 2013
Final manuscript for First World War Studies: February 1st 2014

Submission of abstracts

Abstracts containing no more than 600 words and a CV of no more than 20 lines should be sent to Pieter.verstraete@ppw.kuleuven.be before December 1st 2012.

Looking forward to some thought provoking contributions as well as fruitful discussion,

The editorial committee,
Pieter Verstraete, Martina Salvante & Julie Anderson

CFP: Disability and Native American/Indigenous Studies

Call for Papers: Disability and Native American/Indigenous Studies

Special Issue of Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability (JLCDS)

Guest Editors, Siobhan Senier and Penelope Kelsey

In Colonizing Bodies: Aboriginal Health and Healing in British Columbia 1900-1950, a Nisga’a elder implores the historian Mary Ellen Kelm: “When we talk about the poor health of our people, remember it all began with the white man” (xv). This special issue of JLCDS invites scholars to consider two interrelated phenomena: on the one hand, colonialism has produced indigenous disability and illness—through the depletion of traditional sources of food and medicine, enforced containment in boarding schools and substandard reservation housing, trauma, poverty and so on.

On the other hand, colonial discourse also pathologizes Native people—construing them as genetically prone to certain illnesses, for instance. Given these colonial phenomena, scholarship is particularly welcome that considers how Native people indigenize the famous disability-rights call, “nothing about us without us”—bringing tribally situated responses, adaptations, and resistance to disability and illness.

JLCDS seeks essays that conjoin the methodologies and content of Disability Studies with Native American/Indigenous Studies. The texts under consideration can range from literature and film, in any genre, to non-print and non-alphabetic media. Topics might include, but are by no means limited to:

Tribally specific understandings/representations of illness and disability;
Applications of Disability Studies to indigenous texts;
Applications of indigenous methodologies to disability literature;
Colonization, medicalization, and the construction of disability;
Indigenous nationalisms, feminisms, and Two-Spirited resistance to the non-Native construction of disability;
Illnesses/disabilities more emic to the American Indian experience (i.e., tuberculosis, diabetes, PTSD, Split Feather syndrome);
Environmental degradation and racism and community health;
Representations of substance abuse and other community health concerns in colonial contexts;

Representations of indigenous disability vis-à-vis nation or community.

Proposals and queries should be sent to Siobhan.Senier@unh.edu and Penelope.Kelsey@colorado.edu Proposals are due by March 15, 2011, and proposal selections will be made by May 30, 2011. Completed essays for those selected are due October 1, 2011, and articles will be selected in December of 2011.

Dr. David Bolt
Lecturer, Disability Studies
http://www.hope.ac.uk/boltd
Director, Centre for Culture & Disability Studies
ccds.hope.ac.uk
Editor, Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies
http://liverpool.metapress.com/content/121628
Email: boltd@hope.ac.uk
Telephone 0151 291 3346
Postal address@ Faculty of Education, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool,
L16 9JD

CFP: Disability, Humour, and Comedy

A call for papers from H-Disability today:

CFP: Disability, Humour and Comedy

A Special Issue of the Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies

Guest Edited by
Dr. Tom Coogan (University of Leicester)
Dr. Rebecca Mallett (Sheffield Hallam University)

According to Morreall (2009), the Incongruity Theory “is today the most widely accepted theory of humour.” This theory holds that what makes a situation humorous is “that there is something odd, abnormal or out of place, which we enjoy in some way.” Add to this Mitchell and Snyder’s (2000) concept of narrative prosthesis, which identifies disability (and with it oddness, abnormality and “out of placeness”) as the crutch upon which narratives lean for their representational power, and a more fundamental relationship between disability and humour is suggested. As Moran (2003) has observed, humour is a term with a multitude of meanings. Among other things, she observes, it is a “cognitive style”; a term for a stimulus (e.g. a joke) or the response (e.g. laughter); a term for complex interactions between individuals; a “personality trait”; and an inherent characteristic.

Whatever the meaning, humour remains a multi-faceted thing. It can include as well as it excludes. It can both ease and exacerbate. What is clear is that humour creates many more questions than it answers. Who is allowed to make jokes about disability? If we are offended, should we just “get a sense of humour”? Is there a hierarchy of impairments, with some
impairments being “fair game” and others “off limits”? Is there such a thing as “disability”
humour? Does humour run the risk of attacking the seriousness, and thus the legitimacy, of disability rights? Or does it have a part to play in the struggle for such rights? How is disability playing out in the current vogues for satirical comedy and the comedy of embarrassment (e.g.
“Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “The Office”)?

This special issue of JLCDS will explore the interplay between humour, impairment and disability across all forms of culture and the media. Submissions might consider representations of disability in particular texts or specific forms. Alternatively, they might examine disability theory in relation to humour theory. Submissions on all topics related to disability, humour and comedy are very welcome. Considerations of the impact of “political correctness” - the policing of what can and cannot be made funny - as well as the impact of “critical correctness” (Mallett, 2007) - the policing of what can and cannot be said about humorous/comedic representations of disability -are encouraged. We urge submissions to think the unthinkable and address the difficult questions.

Proposals should be emailed to the guest editors tac7@le.ac.uk or R.Mallett@shu.ac.uk by March 1st, 2011. Final submissions will be due by October 2011.

CFP: Disability in America: Voices of a New Generation

Call for Proposals: Disability in America: Voices of a New Generation

Ari Ne’eman and Stacey Milbern, Co-Editors

Deadline: January 15, 2011

This year, the disability community is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), civil rights law that protects the rights of disabled people.
Growing up in a post-ADA America has meant that many of us have had access to more opportunities than previous generations. We know if we had been born in 1967 instead of 1987 our lives would look completely different. We know the history of our people is tainted by eugenics, ableism, lack of access and the sting of low expectations. We recognize the work that has been done by disability movements over the last century to make the current lives we live possible. We are proud to be members of this vibrant, breathing, community.

Although the struggle continues, we recognize that the realities of disabled people look vastly different in many ways. With this in mind, we are requesting proposals for chapters in a book-length anthology to document this legacy and record the stories of disabled young people
talking about what it is to grow up with a disability in this day and age.

Part One of our anthology will attempt to explore how a new generation experiences these age old challenges, affording a chance to assess how far we have really come. Part Two of our anthology asks disabled young people to identify what our struggle looks like now.

We’re seeking a diversity of perspectives and topics. A few questions we pose as food for thought:
What does it look like to navigate the medical system?
What is it like trying to find and keep a job as a young person with a disability today?
How are mental health challenges and psychiatric impairments approached by family members?
Do students still have to choose between support and inclusion?
What is the impact of pity and charity?
How do we survive the traumas we experience by people who say they are helping us, whether this is in schools, in doctor’s offices, our places of worship, or within our support systems?
How do people with less visible disabilities choose whether or not to disclose?
How has the nature of “passing” changed or not changed?
How do we fight eugenics, with its many faces?
How do we work with personal assistant services and our support systems?
How is disability portrayed differently in American society?
How are media, and pop culture representations of disability viewed by the new generation of young people with disabilities?
What do our relationships and sex lives look like?
How do we find community?

We are seeking creative non-fiction essays from young people with disabilities ages 13-30 (some flexibility will be available for compelling submissions from individuals slightly outside our preferred age range). People with all types of disabilities are welcome to submit. Speaking from personal experience is strongly encouraged. The intent of this project is to use personal voices to capture the experience of the new generation of young people with disabilities.

Submissions should range from 2,000 to 5,000 words. Please include your address, phone number, e-mail address and a short bio on the manuscript.

Proposals are due by e-mail to voicesoftheadageneration@gmail.com to January 15, 2011 but we encourage and will consider for approval early submissions. Please e-mail co-editors Stacey Milbern and Ari Ne’eman at voicesoftheadageneration@gmail.com with questions.

CFP: Nineteenth-Century UK, Gender and Disability

Another cool call for papers:

CALL FOR PAPERS
NINETEENTH-CENTURY GENDER STUDIES
SUMMER 2008
SUBMISSION DATE: March 1, 2008

Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies is a peer-reviewed, online journal committed to publishing insightful and innovative scholarship on gender studies and nineteenth-century British literature, art and culture. The journal is a collaborative effort that brings together advanced graduate students and scholars from a variety of universities to create a unique voice in the field. We endorse a broad definition of gender studies and welcome submissions that consider gender and sexuality in conjunction with race, class, place and nationality.

NCGS is preparing to launch a special guest-edited issue in Summer 2008 that would read nineteenth-century texts within a disability studies/queer studies/gender studies framework. The issue will engage and answer these and other questions: how do issues of the disabled body and the gendered body parallel each other, or collapse into one another? What are the implications of disability in the construction and practice of femininity in nineteenth-century culture? What are the implications of disability in the construction and practice of masculinity in nineteenth-century culture? How do images and metaphors of physical difference work, with gender, into the forms of nineteenth-century literature and culture? What are the connections between gender, ability/disability, and work in the nineteenth century? What are the theoretical implications of prosthetics in writing/understanding nineteenth-century culture? What are the implications of bodily performance in general in the nineteenth century? Is gender transformation also one of the potentialities we might find in Victorian lit/cultural artifacts on disability? What is the significance, in the investigation of nineteenth-century texts, of queering disability and disability studies? How are both same-gender and heterosexual relationships catalyzed by disability in nineteenth-century plot structures? How are identities of able-bodiedness and heterosexuality connected? How do certain texts in the nineteenth century attempt to transform systems of embodiment?

Please submit essays by March 1 to either

Mark Mossman, Associate Professor
English Department
Western Illinois University
Macomb, IL 61455
USA
or,

Martha Stoddard-Holmes, Associate Professor
Department of Literature and Writing Studies
California State University-San Marcos
San Marcos, CA 92096
USA

Only electronic submissions will be considered.