Dr Zowie Davy
Senior Lecturer
College of Social Science, Brayford Pool, Lincoln, LN67TS
Tel. +44(0)1522 837748

Latest Book Recognizing Transsexuals: Personal, Political and Medicolegal Embodiment. Aldershot: Ashgate.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228168125_Recognizing_Transsexuals_draws_on_interviews_with_transsexuals_at
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From: 2015 IASSCS Conference [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 27 September 2014 01:43
To: Zowie Davy
Subject: ABSTRACT SUBMISSION IS NOW OPEN! X IASSCS Conference (Dublin, Ireland)

[cid:9316853793-1][cid:1039200559-2]

X IASSCS Conference

“Literacies and Sexualities in Cultural, Fictional, Real, and Virtual Worlds: Past, Present, Future Perfect?”

Dublin City University, Ireland

17-20 June, 2015



ABSTRACT SUBMISSION IS NOW OPEN!

The X IASSCS Conference, hosted by Mr. Jean-Philippe Imbert and the School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies (SALIS) at Dublin City University, Ireland, proposes to investigate the politics, nature, roles and effects of sexual (and gender) literacy in the cultural, fictional, real and virtual worlds.

If literacy is the ability to read, write and make some sense of life and existence, sexual literacy is the ability to make some sense of the symbol systems relevant to the understanding and use of the concepts of sexuality, and of its inextricable intertwining with gender and all other oppressed and excluded identities. Through history, this sense-making is perpetually contingent, context-dependent, politically charged, highly contested and played out on national and international stages through policy and protest.

A sexual literacy that sees and welcomes a history of non-normative sexualities and gender can, and often is, framed as cultural heresy. Issues of sexual literacy are also taken on-board by the different protagonists in the health and medical worlds, which always inform cultural, ethical, legal and political discourses. Finally, artistic discourses (architecture… literature… music… visual arts… performance arts…) belonging to high or popular cultures also endeavour to make sense of sex, sexualities and gender by providing a wide gamut of hermeneutical discourses. All these are different means of making sense of sexuality and of gender, in sites from classrooms to streets, from stages to senates.

All subjects related to the main theme of the congress are welcome, and may deal with real, imaginary, fictional or virtual worlds. For instance, avenues of investigation may include the following:

  *
Literacies, Sexualities and Activism
This strand proposes to look into the structures and discourses surrounding the organization processes and challenges of inclusive activist spaces by exploring the intersections of our privileges and oppression. Indicative key words: Challenges, demonstrations, equality, freedom, online activism, organisations, power, privileges and oppression, riots, social debates, structures.

  *
Literacies, Sexualities and Cultures
This strand will provide a forum for analysis of cultural issues related to sexual relationships and sexual behavior, in order to explore the question of why and how, at different moments in history, certain scientific and cultural scenarios, and the sexual and gender roles they variously prescribe—or, indeed, violently impose—have acquired viability and/or continue to exert authority over possible modes of human being and becoming. Indicative key words: Authority, behavioural patterns, being and becoming, cultural discourses, gender performance and performativity; gender, sexuality and social classes; history, power, normativity and non-normativity, public feelings, science and culture.

  *
Literacies, Sexualities and Education
In this strand, we propose to focus upon the relationship between education and sexuality, looking at how sexuality is presented and discussed in pedagogical material, and how the many facets of sexuality-related matters can be an inherent component of the reality which is the classroom, and of its theoretical framework provided by curriculum-designing structures. Indicative key words: Access to education, bullying, capabilities, classroom situations, curriculum development, schools and the law, schools and clergies, parents and schools, pedagogical behaviours, pedagogical material, philosophies of education, pupils and teachers.

  *
Literacies, Sexualities and Governance
This strand will focus on how the law has dealt with, applied to, and been enforced on issues relating to sexuality, and how sexual orientation influences the application of legal rules to individuals in our society. The strand will also address the role of the law in shaping the social meaning of sexuality, and how legal rights, protections, and deprivations have evolved based on identities as heterosexual, LGBT in a number of contexts. Indicative key words: Armies and police forces, children and states, deprivation, governmental structures, laws and legistations, policy-making, prisons and punishments, power and counter power, prostitution debates, rules, services and training, sex trafficking, social and physical protection.

  *
Literacies, Sexualities and Health
According to WHO, Sexual Health is “a state of physical, emotional, mental and social well-being in relation to sexuality; it is not merely the absence of disease, dysfunction or infirmity”. This strand proposes to look at how sexual literacy is a core component of all the disciplines belonging to Health Studies to aim at a positive and respectful approach to sexuality and sexual relationships, as well as the possibility of having pleasurable and safe sexual experiences, free of coercion, discrimination and violence. Indicative key words: Access to health,  age studies, the business of health, disability studies,  health awareness, health cultures, health covers, patients and professionals, stigmas, NGOs, violence, well-being.

  *
Literacies, Sexualities and Identities
In this strand, we will focus on what were in the past and what are today the dominant scientific and cultural discourses that at once enable(d) and enforce(d) different types of human beings to perform and incorporate their respective gender and sexual identities, whether normative or “deviant,” in specific, socio-historically changing ways. Indicative key words: Cyber identities, enablement and empowerment, gender and sexual identities, identity formation, norms and deviance, power, private and public identities, socio-history, sexual attraction and courting.

  *
Literacies, Sexualities and Languages
This strand will focus on how the field of language and sexuality has gained importance within socio-culturally oriented linguistic scholarship, looking at the close relationship between literacy, gender and sexuality. The concept of language is understood as the outcome of intersubjectively negotiated practices and ideologies, and includes semiotic, cultural or non-semiotic languages, such as body languages’, for instance. Indicative key words: Body language, cyber-languages, genders and languages, ideologies, languages and taboos, linguistics, languages and lingoes, negotiated practices, power, semiotic and non-semiotic languages, lies, sexuality and translation, sign language, the said and the unsaid.

  *
Literacies, Sexualities, Literature and the Arts
Art and Literature interrogate the ways in which sexuality is conceptualized and constructed, often with the intention of deconstructing essentialist notions of sexuality and identity formation. In this strand, it is proposed to look at how, while recent theoretical interventions have re-situated sexuality as a historical and social category -allowing us to see how ideas about sexuality are linked to forms of power and other hegemonic categories of identity and subjectivity- sexuality remains a contentious subject within most artistic arenas. Debates surrounding the politics and problems of sexual freedom, choice and pleasure still proliferate and address the issue of the pervasiveness of moral panics concerning the sexualisation or ‘pornographication’ of Western cultures in all types of arts, from drag and cabaret, to music and literature, via fashion and advertising. Indicative key words: Art and therapies, artistic propagandas, avant-garde art, artistic canons and sexuality, censorship, freedom of expression, moral panics, pleasure, political discourses of the arts, power, representations of sexuality, underground art movements, satire.

  *
Literacies, Sexualities and the Media
In this strand, we will ask the following questions: What are the effects of the media’s portrayal of sexuality on viewers’ sexual lives? Is the discourse on sexuality provided by the media normative, or formative? How do new media take on-board the discourses on sexuality, and are these discourses affected by the new media, how do the new media provide a sort of new literacy for the understanding of sexuality?Indicative key words: Censorship and sexuality in the media, internet and sexuality, media discourses, media audiences, neoliberalism and sexuality in the media, normativity, propagandistic discourses, sexuality and terrorism in the media.

The official language of the conference is English



Key dates:

CONFERENCE REGISTRATION AVAILABLE FROM OCTOBER 15TH

Deadline for Submission of Abstract Mentoring Programme: Friday 24th October, 2014
Deadline for Submission of Abstract proposals : Monday 10th November, 2014
Answer from Academic Committee: Monday 16th February, 2015
Acceptance Confirmation from Participant: Monday 2nd March, 2015
Programme at a Glance Publication: Monday 26th January, 2015

For general information, please contact: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
To send a proposal and/or to register, please go to: www.iasscs.org/2015conference<http://www.iasscs.org/2015conference>

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