A call for papers that looks interesting for the list: Call for Papers Feminism & Psychology Special Issue DSM-5 and Beyond: A Critical Feminist Dialogue Edited by Jeanne Marecek and Nicola Gavey Psychiatric diagnoses wield considerable influence in western high-income countries, helping to shape everyday understandings of what is normal and what is abnormal. They also undergird structures of funding for treatment and shape its very nature. Feminists and others have pointed to cultural, social and political influences on the system and practice of psychiatric diagnosis. They have highlighted ways diagnoses have been deployed to legitimize patriarchal, racist, colonial, heteronormative and other regimes of power. Yet despite such critiques, diagnoses increasingly give meaning to private experiences and personal identities, and provide a lens through which we view social life. Not surprisingly then, the impending release of the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition),scheduled for May 2013, has generated overwhelming public interest. This Special Issue carries forward the tradition of critical feminist scrutiny of psychiatric diagnosis and of the interplay between psychiatry and the cultural imaginary. We call for work concerned with psychiatric diagnosis – its history, its uses and misuses in the mental health fields (especially in regulating masculinities, femininities, and appropriate sexual expressions), its deployment in popular culture and everyday talk – and its implications for feminist theorizing of psychological suffering, feminist research, and applied feminist practice. Possible topics include: * The proliferation of diagnostic categories, as well as “conceptual bracket creep” (the tendency for diagnostic criteria to expand over time, so that more and more everyday experience is deemed pathological and said to require professional intervention). * Conflicts of interest in the psychiatric and psychological professions that may affect diagnostic practices; the colonization of psychiatry by pharmaceutical interests. * Examinations of the epistemological features of DSM-style diagnoses (e.g., the disease model, biological reductionism, universalism, and categoricalism) and implications for feminist theory and practice. * Critical histories of efforts by feminists and other progressive groups to influence diagnostic categories and practice. What can we learn from their successes and failures? * Critical analyses of how conventional diagnosis practices inhibit or facilitate feminist and other critical approaches to research, practice, psychotherapies, and social action. We invite articles (up to 8000 words), brief reports (up to 3000 words), and commentaries (up to 2000 words). (Note that these word limits include reference lists.) We discourage submissions that focus on a single diagnostic category, unless the analysis illuminates broader theoretical, epistemological, or conceptual concerns. For further details, consult the manuscript submission guidelines at http://fap.sagepub.com/. Submissions will be subject to the usual review process. To discuss a possible submission or the scope of the issue or to submit a manuscript, contact Jeanne Marecek at [log in to unmask]<mailto:>. Closing date for submissions is 15 November 2011 |