CFP–From Outside

Call for Proposals

From the Outside: Narratives from the Othered in the Academy

Editors Santosh Khadka, Joanna C. Davis-McElligatt and Keith Dorwick are proposing a collection of edited essays with the working title “From the Outside,” which would collect theorized narratives from a number of positions: non-normative genders, sexualities, and relationships; non-tenured individuals (especially those beyond the MA, MFA, or PhD); racial and ethnic minorities; academics with HIV, AIDS, or other diseases; individuals with disabilities; academics from an impoverished and/or working class background; first-generation academics; atheists and members of religious communities; and non-US/international faculty and grad students.

Essays should be 5,000 to 7,500 words long and should both tell your story and connect that story to the wider world of academe. Your narrative will, of course, focus on your own individual experiences as an academic, but we are interested in work that attempts to situate that narrative within broader theoretical discourses on difference, Otherness, and outsider-insider relations. Your proposal should address one or more of the following questions and concerns:

  • What experiences have made you feel Othered? What stories, anecdotes or compelling narratives do you have that might communicate those experiences to a diverse audience of readers?
  • How might you work to theorize your narrative/s? What theoretical frameworks do you see resonating with your experiences as an Othered member of the academy?
  • Is your experience shared by a larger community of people? How generalizable or non-generalizable is your experience?
  • How has your own community outside academe (where you are a community member and insider) reacted to the ways in which you present/construct yourself as a member of the academy who occupies an outsider or border position? Have these reactions been negative, positive, or something else?
  • Have any scholars addressed the particularities of your outsider position in the academy? How are you hoping to contribute to this ongoing conversation?
  • How does your narrative speak to the world wide academy in general? In what specific ways do discrimination and inequalities exist in higher education (however that is configured) across the world? How might your narrative be configured within pre-existing discourses on power and difference, and the differential treatment meted out to people of different race, class, gender, color, sexuality, religion, abilities, and nationalities?
  • What can the audience of this collection learn from your position, and experience?
  • What lies at the root of otherness in the academy? What theoretical, philosophical, political, or pragmatic approach can help us to get to those roots and engage them productively for benefits of us all in the academy? What could be some potential approaches to make academy a safe haven for people of all races, colors, classes, sexes, genders, abilities, and nationalities?

Calendar: Proposals due 15 March 2015 (500-1,000 words).

Acceptance of Proposals: 15 April 2015.

Full Drafts Due, 5,000 to 7,500 words: 15 September 2015.

Comments from the Editors: 15 October 2015

Revisions Due: 15 Jan 2016

Please send proposals or inquiries to all three of the editors:

  • Santosh Khadka: santosh.khadka@csun.edu
  • Joanna C. Davis-McElligatt: jcdmce@louisiana.edu
  • Keith Dorwick: kdorwick@louisiana.edu

 

 

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