Call for Proposals/Manuscripts: LGBTQ Popular Culture: The Changing Landscape

The Journal of Homosexuality seeks article-length manuscripts for an upcoming special issue, “LGBTQ Popular Culture:  The Changing Landscape,” to be published in late-2017/early-2018.

Recent decades have seen remarkable changes in the cultural visibility, legal status, and social acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people, from positive representations of queerness in television series like The L-Word and Will & Grace, to films about queer families like The Kids are All Right, to openly-gay and lesbian elected officials and leaders in the business community, to the end of anti-sodomy laws and marriage discrimination.

With these advances have come assimilation of the queer subculture into the mainstream and, with it, loss of both some of the stigmatization of non-heteronormativity and the very cornerstones of the distinctiveness of LGBTQ communities, including queer neighborhoods, bars and nightclubs, bookstores, publications, and other queer businesses.  Queer couples and their children are migrating from LGBTQ enclaves to neighborhoods with better schools, queer singles meet in virtual spaces rather than in bars, and LGBTQ bookstores and community centers, once the hub of queer communities, are closing, replaced by Amazon.com and Facebook pages.  These changes raise the question of how LGBTQ culture is changes and whether, like many assimilated subcultures before it, it may be in fact endangered.

This special issue seeks essays that examine these seismic changes, their sociological and cultural implications, reminisces of what has been lost and gained, and hints at what the future may hold for LGBTQ people.  Can there be a post-gay world or have the challenges to the communities simply entered a new phase?

Submission Guidelines

Proposals of 250 to 500 words should be sent to the special issue editor, Bruce Drushel, Ph.D., Department of Media, Journalism, & Film, Miami University, drushebe@miamioh.edu, by January 1, 2016.  Proposals should articulate the issue to be explored, the approach the author intends to use, and the relationship of the essay to the special issue.  Authors of successful proposals will be notified by January 15, 2017.

Draft manuscripts will be due by July 15, 2017, and should not exceed 50 pages in length, including references, notes, and figures. Submissions will undergo blind review.  Each manuscript must be accompanied by a statement that it has not been published elsewhere and that it has not been submitted simultaneously for publication elsewhere. Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce copyrighted material from other sources and are required to sign an agreement for the transfer of copyright to the publisher. All accepted manuscripts, artwork, and photographs become the property of the publisher.

All parts of the manuscript should be double-spaced with margins of at least one inch on all sides. Authors should number manuscript pages consecutively throughout the paper and should supply a shortened version of the title suitable for the running head, not exceeding 50 character spaces, as well as an introductory note with authors' academic degrees, professional titles, affiliations, mailing and e-mail addresses, and any desired acknowledgement of research support or other credit. . Each article should be summarized in an abstract of not more than 100 words.  Avoid abbreviations, diagrams, and reference to the text in the abstract.

References, citations, and general style of manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the APA Publication Manual, 4th ed.  Cite in the text by author and date (Smith, 1983) and include an alphabetical list at the end of the article.

Illustrations submitted (line drawings, halftones, photos, photomicrographs, etc.) should be clean originals or digital files. Digital files are recommended for highest quality reproduction and should follow these guidelines:

-       300 dpi or higher

-       Sized to fit on journal page

-       EPS, TIFF, or PSD format only

-       Submitted as separate files, not embedded in text files

Tables and figures (illustrations) should not be embedded in the text, but should be included as separate sheets or files. A short descriptive title should appear above each table with a clear legend and any footnotes suitably identified below. All units must be included. Figures should be completely labeled, taking into account necessary size reduction. Captions should be typed, double-spaced, on a separate sheet.

Journal of Homosexuality

The Journal is devoted to scholarly research on homosexuality, including sexual practices and gender roles and their cultural, historical, interpersonal, and modern social contexts. More particularly the Journal has the following purposes:

(a) to serve the allied disciplinary and professional groups represented by anthropology, art, history, the law, literature, philosophy, politics, religion, and sociology, as well as research in the biological sciences, medicine, psychiatry, and psychology;

(b) to serve as a forum for essentialist, social constructionist, and postmodern views of homosexuality;

(c) to serve as the scholarly source of materials for research and educational programs dealing with homosexuality, in particularly gay, lesbian, and queer studies programs;

(d) to serve as a vehicle for the international dissemination of research on homosexuality by scholars throughout the world; and

(e) to confront homophobia through the encouragement of scholarly inquiry and the dissemination of sound research.