[URBANTH-L]Call for Submissions: Edited Volume on Gender, Dressing and Transnational Bodies

[Angela Jancius]

Call for Submissions: Edited Volume on Gender, Dressing and Transnational Bodies 
The following is a call for contributions for a volume on gender, dressing and transnational bodies as part of a new series called "Contributions to Transnational Feminism." The series is concerned with innovative discussions of gender in a transnational context that investigate and engage various aspects of power and privilege at play in the interaction of peoples, ideas, and commodities in a global economy. Submissions can originate in gender studies, dress studies, social theory, postcolonial theory, queer theory, feminist anthropology, cultural geography, art history, critical theory, development studies or other interdisciplinary fields. Contributions should offer new theoretical insights and/or grounded empirical research that engage with/contest the emerging field of transnational feminism(s). More information on the series can be found here: http://www2.drury.edu/ekenny/ 

About the Volume 

The volume will respond to several weaknesses identified in literature on dress, with the aim of deepening the links between dress research and transnational feminist theorizing, broadly defined. In particular, the volume will address the limitations of dominant approaches to dress that emphasize a distinction between Anglo-European "fashion" and "traditional costumes" (Craik 1994: Rabine 2002, Perani & Wolf: 1999). Dominant approaches to dress from a variety of disciplines often fail to theorize the ways in which markers of social difference (such as gender) and historical context structure dressing (Barthes 1990; Baudrillard 1981; Bourdieu 1984; Chattaran & Rudd 2006; Goffman 1956; Simmel 1997). The volume will offer a multidisciplinary approach that aims to engender and contextualize dressing practices in a transnational frame. 

Topics may include (but are not limited to) the following: 

. Theoretical and/or empirical work on dress, dressing styles or items in specific geographical or historical contexts.
. The political economy of dress that links global supply chains and consumption patterns, such as research on the global garment/textile industry
. Work that brings together insights on embodiment, bodies and dressing
. Theorizing on visual or material cultures linked to bodies, dressing or 'habitus'
. The role of globalization or globalizing processes on dress and bodies 
. Dress and urban lifestyles, dance, music and sport
. Dress and conflict, political movements and borders
. Experimental and (auto)ethnographic treatments of gender and dress
. Artistic works or art-based research that explore these themes 

Submission Requirements 

Submissions should include:
. an abstract of no more than 1,000 words, along with an indicative bibliography or drafts chapters
. information about copyright of visual material used or required
. a recent vita and short biography of each contributor
. a probable time line for completion 

Please send expressions of interest, submissions or inquiries to ekenny at drury.edu by Friday 31 May 2009.