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Law & Humanities Blog

Law & Humanities Blog

Call For Papers

Posted: 20 Sep 2011 04:01 PM PDT


From Tucker Culbertson, Syracuse University College of Law

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of the Journal of Homosexuality (http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/WJHM ): "Trans Sexualities"
The Journal of Homosexuality ( http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/wjhm ) invites the submission of extended abstracts for a special issue expected to publish in Fall 2012.


In this volume, we seek to not only conceptually disentangle gender and sexual identities, but to reveal the myriad ways in which their intersections can be both illuminating and perplexing. To date, in academic scholarship on LGBTQ sexualities, "transgender" too often remains present in acronym only, with very real consequences for inclusion and exclusion both in terms of transgender and transsexual personhood as well as to moving studies of gender and sexual identities, and sexual practices (including sexual labor) forward. In this special issue, we seek proposals for papers that focus critically on sexual identities and practices among transgender and transsexual individuals and their partners to begin to fill the existing lacuna in scholarship and theorizing around transgender and transsexual sexualities. To this end, we seek papers that address (but are not limited to) the following issues and topics:



Trans identities complicating binary notions of "gay," "lesbian," and "bisexual" sexualities (e.g., the experiences of gay trans men and lesbian trans women, making meaning of the term and concept of "hetero/homo/bi/sexuality" in the context of trans identity, how trans sexualities contribute to the "queering" of sexualities in general)



"Doing" masculinity, femininity, and androgyny as a trans person in the context of sexual identity and how sexual identities of trans people and their partners are often (mis)"read" and (mis)understood



Fluidity (or not) of sexual identities and/or practices in the lives of those who are trans and/or their sexual partners

·        

The role of language in shaping sexual identities and/or practices among trans people and/or their sexual partners

·        

Trans persons' engagement with sex work and sexualized labor ·



International representations, understandings, and depictions of trans sexualities



Fetishization and commodification of trans sexualities—including the phenomenon, impacts, and effects of trans (in/hyper)visibility in the media (e.g., trans sexual voyeurism)



Intersections between trans bodies and trans sexualities ·



Trans sex, sexualities, and partnerships (and the challenges of conducting ethical scholarship around these issues considering the history of exploitive representations of transgender and transsexual lives) ·

Inclusion and exclusion of trans people within sexual rights movements and potentials for coalition building across social movements focusing on sexualities

Sexual safety and wellbeing of trans persons (and consideration of safer sex practices, sexual marginalization, sexual harassment, sexual assault, access to healthcare)


"Counting" trans people (to ensure that trans people count)—demographic studies of trans sexualities

Reviews of institutions, services, and programs that provide services and programs that include (or don't) focus on trans sexualities

Methods for studying trans sexual identities, sexual practices, and sexual partnerships (and, further, identity and standpoint of the "researcher" and "researched"—how identity matters, considerations of cissexual and cisgender privilege)

We currently seek 1,200-1,500 word extended abstracts for proposed papers that provide a title, brief summary of your central arguments and evidence used to support these arguments, methods to investigate the topic under study (if applicable), and how your proposed paper contributes to, challenges, and/or extends existing scholarship on trans sexualities. Please be clear about the current status of the proposed paper in terms of whether it is at an incipient or advanced stage and provide a brief statement on how you intend to complete the final paper by March 2012. We seek proposals for both theoretical and empirical papers.


International work and work by trans scholars is particularly encouraged.

All abstracts and papers will undergo blinded peer review by a Special Editorial Board of interdisciplinary trans and non-trans scholars conversant with ethical scholarship on trans issues.
To facilitate blind review, please prepare a cover page with your name, contact information, and proposal title, but do not include your name or other identifying information on subsequent pages—do include your proposal title at the top of each page. Send inquiries and extended abstracts to the Guest Editor of this Special Issue, Carla A. Pfeffer, at cpfeffer@purdue.edu by November 1, 2011. Final manuscripts should be approximately 7,500 words (about 25 pages) and will be due in March 2012.
 





Guest Editor: Carla A. Pfeffer (Sociology), Department of Social Sciences, Purdue University - North Central

Special Editorial Board:

Walter O. Bockting (Psychology) Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, University of Minnesota Medical School

Nicola R. Brown (Psychology) Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Canada

Aaron H. Devor (Sociology) Department of Sociology, University of Victoria, Canada
Marcia Ochoa (Cultural and Social Anthropology) Feminist Studies, University of California - Santa Cruz
Tam Sanger (Sociology and Gender Studies) Childhood and Youth Research Institute, Anglia Ruskin University, United Kingdom

Julia Serano (Biology) Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California - Berkeley

Susan Stryker (United States History) Department of Gender and Women's Studies, Arizona State University

Salvador Vidal-Ortiz (Sociology) Department of Sociology, American University


It's Always Something: Love and Litigation At the Opera House

Posted: 20 Sep 2011 10:32 AM PDT

Sarah Lynnda Swan, Columbia University Law School, has published A New Tortious Interference with Contractual Relations: Gender and Erotic Triangles in Lumley v. Gye, in volume 35 of the Harvard Journal of Law and Gender (2012). Here is the abstract.

The tort of interference with contractual relations has many puzzling features that conflict with fundamental principles of contract and tort law. This Article considers how gender influenced the structure of the tort and gave rise to many of these anomalies. Lumley v. Gye, the English case that first established interference with contractual relations, arose from a specifically gendered dispute: two men fighting over a woman. This type of male—male—female configuration creates an erotic triangle, a common archetype in Western culture. The causes of action that served as the legal precedents for interference with contractual relations – enticement, seduction, and criminal conversation – are previous instances where the law regulated gendered triangular conflicts. Enticement prohibited a rival male from taking another man's servant, seduction prohibited a rival male from taking another man's daughter, and criminal conversation prohibited a rival male from taking another man's wife. 

In Lumley v. Gye, the court expanded these precedents and created a cause of action that allowed Lumley to bring an action against his male rival for essentially "taking" his contracted female employee. The gendered basis for the tort explains its most problematic aspects, including why it imposes obligations on non-contractual parties, ignores the role of the breaching promisor in causing the wrong, and treats her as the property of the original promisee. In order to remedy these problematic features, the tort should be restructured as one of mixed joint liability. Further, damages should be limited to those available in contract.
Download the article from SSRN at the link. 

A New Law and Culture (and Other) Blog

Posted: 20 Sep 2011 08:40 AM PDT

Pierre Schlag and Sarah Krakoff of the University of Colorado School of Law have started the blog brazenandtenured--law politics nature and culture. Among the posts: The Monty Python Example No. 1 and Kandinsky or Hart? Aesthetics No. 1.  This blog, as Hercule Poirot would say about other matters, gives me furiously to think.
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