Doing a feminist rhetorical reading of news coverage of Ava Kay Jones, the Voodoo priestess at New Orleans Saints football games?  Conducting a media study of Hindu women film directors and producers?  Got a discourse analysis of online fans invoking the name of God in True Blood femslash?  Submit a book chapter for a proposed edited collection situated at the intersection of media, women, and religion. Deadline is October 31, 2012.

You are invited to reach this crossroads by any combination of paths.  A variety of rhetorical criticism, critical/cultural media studies, and other qualitative communication methodologies are welcome.  A focus on transwomen or any other productive complication of the category of “women” is encouraged.  All religions, including any of the monotheist and polytheist world traditions, will be considered.  Media artifacts must be electronic (television shows, films, websites, podcasts, political news coverage, music, etc. Sorry, no books or magazines), but can be from any country and time period, and need not be explicitly religious to include a religious reading.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

• Original submissions only, no previously published work (papers presented at conferences are ok).
• Submissions from scholars with Ph.D. in hand will receive priority over doctoral students.
• Please format citations using Chicago Manual of Style,Edition 16. Use endnotes not footnotes, plus bibliography.
• Word Count: 6,000 words maximum including endnotes and bibliography.
• By submitting your chapter, you are agreeing to refrain from submitting it for publication consideration elsewhere until we have received the publisher’s verdict on our book proposal.  If the proposal is accepted, you are agreeing to refrain from submitting your piece for publication elsewhere until after the book is out.
• Please include links to any proposed images, video clips, and websites to appear on our book’s companion website.
• Include a biography of a maximum of five lines, including your highest academic degree and degree-granting institution, current position title, current institution, and a mention of a few pertinent previous publications.

Submit as e-mail attachment in MSWord or Rich Text Format to Rachel.Silverman@erau.edu“>Alena.Ruggerio@sou.edu by October 31, 2012.

Gender Matters, by Sara Mills, presents a feminist linguistic analysis of texts – literature, media and lyrics – and conversation. It explores how gender relates to and shapes our understanding of sexism, reading and writing, politeness and public speaking.

The essays in the book examine a range of questions: why is it necessary for feminists to analyze or comment on sexism when sexism is widely regarded as an anachronistic concern? How can feminists describe the effect of gender on the experience of literature? Why are women considered more capable of private rather than public speech? What is the relation between gender and politeness and are women more polite than men? In analyzing these themes, Gender Matters highlights the insights and strengths of both second and third wave feminist analysis for linguistics,and is published by Equinox. See the following link for details:

www.equinoxpub.com/equinox/books/showbook.asp?bkid=367&keyword=gender

Women in Higher Education: The Fight for Equityby Marian Meyers with Diana Rios (Hampton Press, 2012).  ISBN 978-1-61289-065-4 (paperbound).  $28.95.

For the past 40 years, women in the academy have been working to achieve equality with their male colleagues in the areas of hiring, salary, promotion, tenure and allotted resources.  Yet, research indicates that in many ways, academia has been resistant to change, instead maintaining policies, practices and procedures that preserve the privileges of White, male faculty while undermining those aimed at fostering equity.

Women in Higher Education: The Fight for Equity provides evidence of on-going discrimination in the work lives of women faculty and graduate students. The 13 chapters in this book draw on theory, research and personal narrative to illustrate, theorize and explore the “chilly climate” that academic women face, as well as to offer alternatives for creating a more inclusive, fair and just academy for everyone.

The book pays particular attention to the ways that gender intersects with ethnicity, race, class, sexuality and other aspects of self – including whether academic women are mothers and/or feminists – and the effects of this intersectionality on their experiences and careers in higher education.

Marian Meyers is an associate professor in the Department of Communication and the Women’s Studies Institute at Georgia State University. She previously has authored and edited books and written articles on the representation of women in the media, specifically exploring the ways that gender, race and class intersect in representation.  She is a former chair of the Feminist Scholarship Division of the International Communication Association.  

Diana Rios is an associate professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and the Institute for Puerto Rican and Latino Studies at the University of Connecticut.

Some of you may be interested in a new digital repository on the woman’s suffrage movement and, in particular, Abigail Scott Duniway (1834-1912), the foremost proponent of woman’s rights in the Pacific Northwest and a highly controversial figure in the national movement whose outspoken, even bellicose, opposition to Prohibition and Eastern interference in her “bailiwick” earned her the enmity of Anna Howard Shaw, Clara Bewick Colby, and other leading women. The heart of the archive consists of extensively edited and annotated versions of her speeches (53 so far) on these and other topics, most of which have never been published, or published only in corrupt form. PDFs of her original manuscripts also are available. Finally, the site includes an extended rhetorical biography of Scott Duniway and links to further resources concerning her personally and woman’s suffrage generally.The archive is available at http://asduniway.org. Comments, suggestions, corrections, and additions are welcomed.

The Myra Sadker Foundation announced availability of applications for its 2012 funding awards are now available. The foundation has three funding priorities to promote gender equity:

• doctoral dissertation awards

• teacher grants for classroom projects
• grants for student projects

Descriptions of each award as well as application requirements can be found at http://www.sadker.org/awards.html.

The Myra Sadker Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting equity in and beyond schools. By working to eliminate gender bias, the Foundation enhances the academic, psychological, economic and physical potential of America’s children. The foundation supports research, training and special programs for teachers, parents, children and all those whose work and interests touch the lives of children. You can email or call President David Sadker for more information at 520.297.2319 or dsadker@gmail.com.