Call for Papers: “Theorizing Gender and Sexuality in the Historic and Contemporary Middle East,” ( 1-3 May | University of Chicago, IL)

Call for Papers

35^th Annual Middle East History and Theory Conference

Theorizing Gender and Sexuality in the Historic and Contemporary Middle East

The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL

May 1-3, 2020

We invite proposals for papers and pre-arranged panels from graduate students, faculty, and independent scholars pertaining to the Middle East and spanning the sixth century c.e. to the present day. Topics include but are not limited to history, political science, anthropology, religious studies, geography, literary studies, philosophy, art history, and media studies. We welcome submissions covering all disciplines and time periods noted above.

Submission Deadline: February 7th, 2020

We also encourage submissions related to the theme of this year’s conference: Theorizing Gender and Sexuality in the Historic and Contemporary Middle East. The keynote speaker of this year’s conference will be Professor Paul Amar (University of California, Santa Barbara), author of The Security Archipelago: Human-Security States, Sexuality Politics, and the End of Neoliberalism.

 For proposals related to the conference theme, questions of interest include the following:

• How can theorizing about historic formations and articulations of gender and sexuality in the Middle East inform present day theory and praxis?
• Can history serve as a reservoir of tools for contemporary revolutionary politics whose aims include gender and sexual emancipation?
• How do we theorize gender and sexuality in the Middle East in a context of novel forms of global governance and security infrastructures?
• What alternative geographies, vocabularies, and conceptual frameworks emerge in attending to particular historical struggles/movements that may not have had a lasting impact on contemporary politics or visions of state and society? What does reconstructing or recovering these struggles allow us to see?
• What understandings of postcolonial state-formation emerge from moving beyond scholarly claims of “epistemic violence” in relation to matters of gender and sexuality in the Middle East?
• How do feminist struggles within the Middle East inform, challenge, or compliment understandings of Western, rights-oriented political movements?
• In what ways are categories of gender and sexuality deployed to police and regulate the boundaries of the nation? What new collective political identities emerge through the articulation of rights-claims on the part of gendered and sexual minorities? How are old collectivities activated and entrenched in the face of these rights-claims?

Application. Please send submissions electronically to mehatconference2020@gmail.com, no later than Friday, February 7, 2020. Please include each presenter’s name, institution, and position, and attach a 250-word abstract with a tentative title. For pre-arranged panels, please send a single email with an overall panel description plus individual paper abstracts. The best abstracts will summarize the paper’s topic, its relationship and contribution to existing scholarship and specific conclusions. Abstracts will be evaluated anonymously by the coordinators; therefore, please do not include names or any identifying information in the abstract. If you are unsure about the suitability of your topic, feel free to email us at the above address. Selection results will be announced in March, 2020.

Panels. Papers will be selected and grouped into panels of three or four. Special preference will be given to pre-arranged panels, although individual submissions are always welcome. Participants should be prepared to deliver a maximum twenty-minute presentation and respond to questions from an assigned discussant as well as conference attendees. Written papers must be circulated to the respondent and fellow members of the panel at least two weeks before the conference.

Please circulate widely! For questions and accessibility concerns, please write to mehatconference2020@gmail.com, or visit https://mehat2020.wixsite.com/mehat.

This year’s conference is co-sponsored by the University of Chicago’s Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, The Franke Institute for the Humanities, and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.