CFP: Special Issue on Gender and Public Memory

Call for Papers Special Issue of Southern Journal of Communication

Southern Journal of Communication

CFP:  Special Issue on Gender and Public Memory

Guest Editors: Tasha Dubriwny & Kristan Poirot, Texas A&M University

Public memory scholars consistently argue that U.S. commemorative practices and traditions promote historical narratives that are inherently conservative in nature. The narratives celebrated in many public memory landscapes, in other words, are ones that are likely to support, not challenge, mainstream democratic values and figures. These sites rehearse key aspects of American mythology, including a national dedication to equality, liberty, work, sacrifice, ingenuity, and heroism. Wittingly or not, these “places of public memory” are likely to mask foundational commitments to white heterosexual male supremacy, class hierarchies and the systemic violence used to secure them. In short, the embodiment of the American identity in commemorative sites is, more often than not, a white heterosexual cis-gendered male, reaffirming the “great man” perspective that dominated American historiography for too long.  Indeed, although public memory scholarship does remark, at times, !
 on the relative absence of women from narratives and sites, the question of gender more generally and its role in public commemoration has yet to emerge as a sustained area of focus in communication public memory scholarship.

This special issue aims to interrogate the role of gender in public memory practices, articulating the stakes of various constructions and exclusions. We invite essays from a variety of disciplinary and methodological perspectives that focus on communication, gender, and public memory.  We invite essays that touch on any of the following areas (and others that are not listed here):

-         Public memory of feminist and/or LGBTQ social movements

-         Sites of public memory devoted to women and women’s accomplishments

-         Analyses of national monuments and museums that take gender as an orienting perspective

-         Feminist and/or queer theorizing of public memory practices

-         Queer sites of public memory

-         Ethnographic investigations of gender and public memory

-         Memory, media, and gender

-         Gendered practices of commemorative journalism

Authors should submit manuscripts electronically by October 1, 2016 to the Manuscript Central website for SCJ:http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rsjc .   Authors should indicate that they are submitting the manuscript for consideration in the special issue by selecting “Gender and Public Memory” from the drop-down menu.

All manuscripts should include an abstract of approximately 150 words and a list of key words that clearly indicate the scholarly conversation to which the essay contributes. Submissions may be in either APA or Chicago, and must be original research not under review elsewhere.

Manuscripts should not normally exceed 25 double-spaced pages, including text, references, notes, tables, and figures.  Writing must be free of sexist and discriminatory language. Upon notification of acceptance of a manuscript, the author must provide a copy of the completed manuscript as well as camera-ready copy of any artwork and figures, and must assign copyright to the Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Inquiries may be made to the guest editors, Tasha Dubriwny (tdubriwny@tamu.edu) and/or Kristan Poirot (poirot@tamu.edu).