The Fan Studies Network

CFP: Geek Feminism (edited collection)

Geek girls exist. But it wasn’t until a packed San Diego Comi-Con panel in 2010 actually entitled “Geek Girls Exist” that the ramifications of this fact began to be realized. Women’s increased visibility in science and technology, pop culture fandoms, sci-fi and fantasy storytelling, gaming, and other geeky endeavors has brought to the foreground a resistance to acknowledging a geek culture that isn’t straight, white, and male. On one level, geek feminism emerged to combat this oppressive atmosphere determined to discourage and erase the participation of geeks whose identities deviated from that norm. But on every other level, that fight is just a footnote to the myriad ways in which geek feminism is a unique (and frequently joyful) manifestation of what happens when the radical and imaginative potentiality of 1980s scientific, creative, and communications technologies intersected with the identity-conscious third wave feminism that emerged in the 1990s. While several books exist that detail first-person experiences and offer collections of resources for geek girls, this anthology will be the first book-length collection of scholarship exploring the ways in which geek feminism is expressed and practiced.

Submissions should draw on current work in fan studies, critical race theory, queer theory, feminist theory, jurisprudence, media studies, and transnational studies. While part of the anthology will need to be focused on feminist critique of geek culture, we encourage submissions that focus on the generative and imaginative aspects of geek feminism.

Potential topics and areas of interest could include:

The history of geek feminism
Analysis of geek fictions and characters
Speculative justice: when fictions correct fact
How to spot a geek girl: identity formation and performance
Cyber vs. IRL geek feminist praxis: the convergence of imagined, online, and “real” spaces
Geek-tivism as a response to systemic oppressions
The creative, productive, joyful practices of geek feminism
The business of geekdom: examinations of the creation, marketing and crafting of geek artifacts and products
And, of course, miscellaneous weird stuff

Send 300-word abstracts and short bios to Amy Peloff at apeloff@gmail.com and Nancy White at ncwhite@uw.edu with subject line “CFP – Geek Feminism.” Since geek feminism is a relatively undefined term, we ask that each submission also include a brief attempt (c. 100-150 words) to define geek feminism within which to situate your proposed chapter. Our hope is to draw on the community of contributors to develop a definition of the term.

Abstracts should include title, author name, and institutional affiliation, as well as contact details. The editors will ask the authors of selected proposals to submit their final chapters no later than March 1, 2017.

Timeline
Abstracts by October 1, 2016
Decision by November 1, 2016
Papers by March 1, 2017

Editors
Dr. Amy Peloff, Independent Scholar
Dr. Nancy C. White, University of Washington

Contact Info:
Amy Peloff at apeloff@gmail.com and Nancy White at ncwhite@uw.edu

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