Call for Papers

What’s Queer about Queer Theory?



Transverse, the Comparative Literature graduate student journal at the University of Toronto is very pleased to announce a call for submissions for our Spring/Summer 2011 issue, “What’s Queer about Queer Theory?” We are interested in original academic articles, poetry, artwork and fiction.

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (1950-2009) was one of the great theorists of queer theory. Her books, especially, Between Men and Epistemology of the Closet, brought sexuality to the forefront of literary studies; however, the question that we are left with today is: what is queer about queer theory? Queer theory has become commonplace, mainstream and even part of the theoretical canon and status quo in most fields of literary and cultural study. To read Sedgwick today is to read literary theory that no longer seems radical or transgressive, and yet, the reader most certainly recognizes the abrasive and shocking nature of what Sedgwick said. In this regard, Transverse proposes the following question: what’s queer about queer theory? We welcome papers that work to re-read and re-situate queer theory and more open studies on gender and sexuality. We also welcome poetry, artwork and fiction that pertain to this theme of openness. Michael D. Snediker’s recent book Queer Optimism can be seen as an example of a queering of queer theory in that Snediker carefully reads and re-reads the major figures in the school, asking about the place of optimism – a very queer notion – in literary theory. Of particular interest is queer theory in a literary context, given that it is riddled with notions of shame, the death drive and melancholy. Can queer theory move to consider optimism as Snediker proposes? Or, how does queer theory engage with postcolonial studies without simply outing primitive, subaltern, indigenous, colonial subjects (who in many instances transform into objects of study)? Indeed, the combination of queer theory with other theories has proven to provide interesting, meta-critical insights on the theories in question; however, how useful are these models for “giving life” to new modes of queer theory? What is the place of queer theory in phenomenology (or, structuralism, or hermeneutics, etc.)? Is there a “queer time and place” that is not being considered and if so, what does it look like? How queer is time and place? What is the role of queer theory in questions of translation and adaptation? Thus, the ultimate question here seems to be one in which the negotiation of the radical-ness of queer theory alongside the problem of being commonplace needs to be considered. If queer theory is no longer radical, what is it? Has queer theory become passé, cliché, and boring?

For our submission guidelines, please visit the Transverse Journal official site, and follow the link on our "Call for Papers" page, here. Please send academic articles of approximately 5000 words, poems, artwork and fiction, along with professional biographies, to transversejournal@gmail.com by April 1st, 2011.

Transverse is an online journal that publishes two full-length issues per year. The journal is entirely run by the students at the Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto. The TransverseEditorial Board would like to thank our sponsors, the Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto and the 2010 University of Toronto Comparative Literature graduate student Conference Committee.