CFP: Poverty and Sexuality

Sarah Tobias Announcement
Subject Fields
Women's & Gender History / Studies, Sexuality Studies, Humanities, Social Sciences

The Institute for Research at Women at Rutgers University invites submissions for an edited volume on Poverty and Sexuality, which we anticipate publishing at a university press.

The start of the 21st century has been marked by extreme volatility in global financial markets, growing concern about sexual rights in the geopolitical arena, and an explosion of groundbreaking academic work in gender and sexuality within the social sciences and humanities. At national and international levels, issues of gender and sexuality have also taken on increasing prominence in public discourse and the policy arena. The last decade and a half has also been characterized by rising gaps of wealth and access to resources. In this context, US-based studies have shown that large numbers of undocumented people, non-married, racialized women, men of color, rural and urban children, trans and gender nonconforming people, and those with more marginal queer identities languish in growing states of poverty. Conceiving of poverty broadly as a lack of income, opportunities, health, and education, this volume will explore the connections between poverty and groups marginalized by race, gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation, in light of recent economic and political shifts.

The volume’s topic may be interpreted broadly, and address the intersection(s) of poverty and sexuality within local, national, or international contexts. We invite contributions from scholars and activists. In addition to social scientific studies and activist-based research and writing, we also welcome humanities-focused, art, and cultural analyses of the subject. Chapters may include academic essays up to 8,000 words (including footnotes and bibliography) or shorter reflections or critical pieces up to 4,000 words (including footnotes and bibliography).  The volume will be edited by Dr. Nicole R. Fleetwood and Dr. Sarah Tobias (bios below).  Please send abstracts of 200 – 300 words accompanied by a C.V. to stobias@rci.rutgers.edu by December 15, 2016.  Full text articles should be ready no later than May 15, 2017. 

Dr. Nicole R. Fleetwood is Associate Professor in the Department of American Studies at Rutgers University, where she also served as Director of the Institute for Research on Women in 2013-2016. Fleetwood received her Ph.D. from Stanford University in the Program in Modern Thought and Literature and her B.Phil. from the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at Miami University (Ohio). Her articles appear in American Quarterly, Signs, Social Text, tdr: the journal of performance studies, and edited anthologies.  She is the author of Troubling Vision: Performance, Visuality, and Blackness (University of Chicago Press 2011), which won the 2012 Lora Romero First Book Publication Prize of the American Studies Association, and of On Racial Icons (Rutgers University Press 2016).  She has worked as a consultant and has collaborated with a number of arts organizations and programs.  Currently, she is working on a study of prison art and visuality in which she examines a range of visual art and practices emerging inside prisons and about prison life, including photography, painting, and collaborative works with arts organizations and commissioned artists.

Dr. Sarah Tobias is Associate Director of the Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers University. Her work bridges academia and public policy. A feminist theorist and LGBT activist, she is co-author of Policy Issues Affecting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Families (University of Michigan Press, 2007) and co-editor of Trans Studies: The Challenge to Hetero/Homo Normativities (Rutgers University Press, 2016), as well as author, co-author, and editor of numerous policy-related reports and articles. Prior to joining the institute in January 2010, she spent over 8 years working in the nonprofit sector and also taught at Rutgers-Newark, the City University of New York (Baruch College and Queens College), and Columbia University.  In addition to serving as Associate Director of the Institute for Research on Women, Sarah is affiliate faculty in the Women’s and Gender Studies Department at Rutgers. She has a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University and an undergraduate degree from Cambridge University, England.