Rita Stephan at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, Washington DC sends a call for papers regarding WOMEN AND THE ARAB SPRING: RESISTANCE, REVOLUTION, REFORM (rita.stephan@gmail.com)

Jennifer Heath and Rita Stephan are assembling an edited volume about women’s initiative and actions up to and during the so-called Arab Spring. This comprehensive collection will examine historical roots of Arab women’s leadership from antiquity to the present, giving voice to women’s voices by exploring wide-ranging topics such as tweeting in Tunisia, graffiti in Egypt, the campaign for driving in Saudi Arabia, the “women’s revolution” in Syria, the raisons d’etre of Islamist women, the roles of minority women, and more.

The book will feature essays, interviews, and artwork describing women’s leadership (and threats to it), resistance, mobilization, rights, and reforms from numerous points of view and contexts throughout the region, culminating in analysis of what this can mean for the future, its opportunities and challenges.  Their purpose is to produce a cross-over book that will appeal to both scholarly and general audiences and that realistically illustrates Arab women’s agency and strengths.

Deadline for 500-word abstracts, interview proposals, and images, with 300-word author biographies is June 3, 2013.  Articles (no longer than 5,000 words) will be due September 9, 2013. Please send all written materials as WORD.doc and all images as JPEGs to Jennifer Heath, HeathCollom@comcast.net and Rita Stephan, rita.stephan@gmail.com, subject heading SPRING.

For more information contact the authors.

Rachel E. Silverman at Rachel.Silverman@erau.edu“>Rachel.Silverman@erau.edu and Jay Baglia, wbaglia@depaul.edu post a call for chapters in Pregnancy Loss Narratives – An Edited Collection

The loss of a desired pregnancy and the inability to experience pregnancy are intensely personal phenomena; these losses are also, in our culture at least, extremely (and some would argue, inexplicably) private. There is no shortage of books that help prospective parents through the process of recovering from an unintended pregnancy loss or “dealing with” or “surviving” infertility, whether that fertility is explained or unexplained but this is different in that it will include the first-person narratives of individuals who have experienced miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy loss, and/or infertility or who have undergone treatment for infertility. Each of these narratives will be accompanied by an author-crafted analysis that employs concepts and theories of narrative.

This book is currently under contract with Peter Lang Publishing and will a part of the Health Communication Series (series editor: Gary Kreps) with an expected publication date of Summer 2014.

The vision for this project contains two distinct sections: lay perspectives and clinical perspectives. Baglia and Silverman believe such an approach will 1) serve to inform individuals (whether lay or professional) and couples for whom the current information may lack the depth that can only come from a storyteller and 2) provide for students of health communication examples of narratives that are not reflective of dominant (i.e. biomedical) discourses.

Here are some specific narratives the editors are looking for:

• Lesbians or lesbian couples who have experienced pregnancy loss
• Gay men or gay couples who have experience pregnancy loss
• Women and/or couples of color who have experienced pregnancy loss
• Narratives of pregnancy loss from 30-50 years ago
• Narratives involving couples experiencing relational disintegration before, during, or after pregnancy loss
• Narratives of surrogates or of women and/or couples who have employed surrogates
• Narratives involving a crisis of faith
• Nurses providing a single case study of a pregnancy loss
• Primary care physicians providing a single case study of a pregnancy loss
• Doulas/midwives providing a single case study of a pregnancy loss
• Counselors and/or grief therapists providing a single case study of a pregnancy loss
• Reiki practitioners, acupuncturists, and/or massage therapists providing a single case study of a pregnancy loss

Deadlines:
Chapter Proposals: April 1, 2013
Notification of Acceptance: May 1, 2013
Completed Chapters: July 15, 2013

Please include in your Chapter Proposal:

• A 500-word abstract of your narrative (including working title)
• A 100-150 word bio
• A copy of your vita (including courses taught).

Submission Guidelines:

• Submissions should be grounded in one or more concepts or theories related to narrative and offer an analysis of the narrative appropriate for a college classroom
• Submissions should be in APA format and created in MSWord
• Final page length and style will vary depending on author and story; we encourage inventive/imaginative forms of storytelling
• Please send submissions to both rachelesilverman@gmail.com and jaybags01@hotmail.com with Pregnancy Loss Narrative in the subject line

Elizabeth Reid Boyd, author of “Lady: Still a Feminist Four-Letter Word?” in the Fall 2012 issue of Women & Language was recently interviewed about her article in The Critical Lede. The podcast of the interview is at http://thecriticallede.com/ and is also available through ITunes at http://podbay.fm/show/369560923

Paper and presentation proposals are being accepted until March 1, 2012 for Methodological Challenges and Opportunities:  An Interdisciplinary Symposium on LGBT Research in the Social to take place May 2, 2013 from  9am – 3pm; at the Hotel and Conference Center in Champaign, IL

This national conference is the culmination of a year-long interdisciplinary research seminar bringing together graduate students and faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and across North America. During the 2012-2013 academic year, researchers have been meeting in small groups and panels to discuss the complexities inherent in LGBT research including ethical issues, sampling and recruitment, methodologies, diversity and intersectionality, connecting research to practice, and technological advances in LGBT research. This final symposium aims to provide a broader range of researchers an opportunity to present their own challenges, opportunities, and lessons learned in conducting social science research with LGBT populations.

Closing speakers will be Cheryl Angelaccio (Lambda Legal) and Naomi Goldberg (Movement Advancement Project) discussing how to generate and use social science research on LGBT issues to inform policy and litigation.

Proposals for presentations at the symposium should fall into the following categories:  original research with LGBT populations, conceptual and theoretical issues associated with LGBT research, and incorporating LGBT research in practice settings.

Request for Proposals deadline: March 1, 2013.  Proposals should be limited to 750 words. Submissions from graduate students are especially encouraged.  Proposals may be submitted in the form of paper presentations or panel discussions.  Accepted paper presentations will be formed into panel discussions based on similar topics. Panel discussions consist of four presenters and last 80 minutes. Notification of acceptance will take place by March 15, 2013.  The conference is free of charge, but space is limited, so registration is required.

Limited funding is available to offset the cost of travel and lodging for graduate student presenters. Please indicate your interest in obtaining funding travel in your proposal submission.

Abstract Submissions: Please submit abstracts (including presenters’ names, affiliations, funding request, and contact information) via email to lgbtresearch.uiuc@gmail.com, the address for any questions regarding proposal submissions.

For more information on the conference, or to register, see the website at www.lgbtresearch.weebly.com or send questions to lgbtresearch.uiuc@gmail.com.

Dr. Elaine Zelley and Dr. Katie Dunleavy (dunleavy@lasalle.edu) of La Salle University are collecting survey data regarding female friendships and competition. If you are between the ages of 25-40, and a woman, please consider participating in this anonymous study at
http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/975962/Friendly-Competition