For a special issue of NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies, co-editors Todd Reeser (University of Pittsburgh) and Lucas Gottzén (Stockholm University) invite abstracts to be considered on the topic “Masculinity and Affect.”
Questions of gender and sexuality have been central to the affective turn in the academy, but much of this work has been in the realm of queer or feminist studies. What would it mean—in theory or in practice—to place masculinity studies into direct dialogue with affect studies? Does affect undo or affirm hegemonic, normative, or stable-seeming masculinities? Does it undo or affirm discursively defined emotions linked to men or masculinity? Does it serve some other function? Is it disconnected from masculinity in the first place?
For this issue, we are especially interested in papers that consider affect as ineffable, virtual, intense, slippery, boundary-breaking, non-representational or queer, but also as one element of a broader construct of masculinity or subjectivity. How do affective moments interact with more stable cultural discourses around emotion or masculinity? What would it mean to locate a process-based relation between masculinity and affect/emotion?
We seek scholars from social science or humanities disciplines, as well as scholars that ignore the traditional boundaries between these areas of inquiry. Topics might focus on questions of race, ethnicity, nation, transnationalism, sexuality, sex, ability, age, class, etc. Work might analyze cultural practice, subjectivity, language, literature, media, art, music, space, etc., but should be of broad enough scope for an interdisciplinary readership.
Send 250 word abstracts to: reeser@pitt.edu
Deadline: April 1, 2016.
Accepted papers (5000-6000 words) will be due October 15, 2016. A colloquium around this special issue is being planned for academic year 2016-17.
