HETEROSEXUALITY
Editor: Yasco Horsman
Book Series: Thamyris / Intersecting: Place, Sex, and ‘Race’
Publisher: Rodopi (Amsterdam / New York)
Series Editor: Ernst van Alphen
Deadline for Proposals: July 1, 2007
“Thamyris / Intersecting,” a book series on place, sex and ‘race’ seeks contributions to an upcoming volume on heterosexuality.
Heterosexuality has long been considered the norm, the unmarked category from which all ‘perversions’ deviate – in short, something that is in itself not in need of an explanation. With the emergence of queer theory in the 1990’s, and its insistence on the constructed and flux nature of all sexual identities, straightness itself was shown to be neither as monolithic nor as stable as had once been assumed. This opened the doors for a project that Calvin Thomas has recently dubbed ‘straight queer theory,’ a rigorous analysis of the cultural and social construction of heterosexuality that refuses to take sexual identity as fixed.
For its upcoming volume on ‘straight queer theory’ Thamyris / Intersecting welcomes essays that explore contemporary scenes of straightness in art, literature, cinema and popular culture as well as theoretical excursions on heterosexuality that critically engage with queer theory, gender studies or psychoanalysis. Topics to be considered could range from the straight body, straight camp, straight mating rituals and straight dating shows, to straightness in Houellebecq’s novels, Breillat’s films, Arab Strap’s songs, Matthew Barney’s installations or Karen Finley’s performances. Essays that address the relations between sexuality, national identity or race will receive a special consideration.
Thamyris / Interesecting is published by Rodopi-Press in the Netherlands. Recent issues include essays by Ernst van Alphen, Mieke Bal, Rey Chow, Ariel Dorfman, Marianne Hirsch & Leo Spitzer, Isabel Hoving, Brian McHale and Griselda Pollock.
Proposals for contributions to “Heterosexuality” may be submitted by email (y.horsman@let.leidenuniv.nl) before July 1, 2007. Include the proposal (600 words) in the body of the message. Use “Heterosexuality” as the subject line. Please include a short c.v.
The deadline for finished articles (6,000-8,000 words) is December 1, 2007.