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From: gdpough [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2005 3:21 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Call for Submissions: Hip Hop Feminist Anthology
Call for Submissions
Home Girls, Make Some Noise!: Hip Hop Feminism Anthology
Feminism, rap music, and Hip Hop culture, at first glance, do not appear
to be likely cohorts. In the male-driven, testosterone filled world of
Hip Hop culture and rap music labeling oneself a feminist is not a
political stance easily taken. Thus, many women involved with Hip Hop
culture do not take on the label of feminist even as their actions imply
feminist beliefs and leanings. Much of the strong criticisms of rap
music have been about the music's sexism and misogyny. And much of the
attention focused on sex and gender have been in terms of constructions
of Black masculinity, and rap music as a vehicle for Black male
posturing. A lot of attention has been paid to the impact rap music and
the masculine space of Hip Hop culture has on the development of Black
male identities.
In this volume, the editors strive to understand constructions of Hip
Hop feminism, gender, and sexuality in Hip Hop culture, rap music and
these in transnational contexts.
We take the stance that Hip Hop is a cultural phenomenon that expands
farther than rap music. Hip Hop has been defined by many as a way of
life that encompasses everything from way of dress to manner of speech.
Hip Hop as a culture originally included graffiti writing, d-jaying,
break dancing, and rap music. It has recently expanded to include genres
such as film, spoken word, autobiographies, literature, journalism, and
activism. It has also expanded enough to include its own brand of
feminism. The work of Hip Hop feminist writers such as Ayana Byrd,
Denise Cooper, Eisa Davis, Eisa Nefertari Ulen, shani jamilla, dream
hampton, Joan Morgan, Tara Roberts, Kristal Brent-Zook, and Angela Ards
is expanding black feminist theory and black women 's intellectual
traditions in fascinating ways. What started out as a few young black
feminist women who loved Hip Hop and who tried to mesh that love with
their feminist/womanist consciousness is now a rich body of articles,
essays, poetry, and creative non-fiction.
We seek to complicate understandings of Hip Hop as a male space by
including and identifying the women who were always involved with the
culture and offering Hip Hop feminist critiques of the music and the
culture. We seek to explore Hip Hop as a worldview, as an epistemology
grounded in the experiences of communities of color under advanced
capitalism, as a cultural site for rearticulating identity and sexual
politics. We are particularly interested in seeing submissions of
critical essays and cultural critiques, interviews, creative non-fiction
and personal narratives, fiction, poetry, and artwork. We also encourage
submissions from women working within the Hip Hop sphere, Hip Hop
feminists and activists "on the ground," as well as scholars, writers,
and journalists. We do not wish to reify the scholar/activist dichotomy,
but we want to encourage as broad a discussion of the possibilities of
Hip Hop Feminism as possible and we want to be sure multiple voices and
perspectives are represented in the anthology. All work submitted must
be original and should not have been published elsewhere.
Word Count/Page Limits:
Critical Essays and Cultural Critiques - 25 pages (including
bibliography) 6500 words Interviews - 10 pages/2500 words Creative
Non-Fiction and Personal Narratives - 20 pages/5000 words Fiction - 20
pages/5000 words Poetry/Rhymes - No more than 3 pages per poem/rhyme and
3 poems per poet/mc Artwork - Up to three pieces per artist
Editors:
Gwendolyn Pough is an Associate Professor of Women's Studies, Writing,
and Rhetoric at Syracuse University and the author of Check It While I
Wreck It; Black Womanhood, Hip-Hop Culture and the Public Sphere,
Northeastern University Press 2004.
Elaine Richardson is an Associate Professor of English at Penn State
University and the author of African American Literacies (2003) and the
forthcoming Hip Hop Literacies both from Routledge Press.
Rachel Raimist is a Hip Hop feminist filmmaker, scholar and activist.
Her film credits include the award-winning feature length documentaries
Freestyle, Nobody Knows My Name, and Garbage, Gangsters, and Greed. She
is a doctoral student in Feminist Studies at the University of
Minnesota- Twin Cities.
Aisha S. Durham is an essayist and Editorial Assistant for several
cultural studies journals, including Qualitative Inquiry where her
performance work is featured. Durham's dissertation research examining
Hip Hop feminism will be featured in an upcoming anthology and
documentary about Hip Hop culture. She is a doctoral candidate in the
Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign.
Additional themes to be explored:
n Has Hip Hop feminism moved beyond the conflicted stance of loving Hip
Hop, being a feminist, and meshing the two? What is next? What should
Hip Hop feminism be doing?
n Now that we have at least two generations of women who identify as Hip
Hop feminist, can we talk about multiple Hip Hop feminism(s), multiple
Hip Hop feminist agendas?
n On that generational note, how then does the Hip Hop feminist agenda
mesh with the Black feminist agenda or womanist agenda of our
predecessors and contemporaries who do not claim a Hip Hop sensibility?
n We know that there are dedicated educators out there who are working
in the trenches with no institutional support to bring feminist
education and issues of sexuality, sexual health, and emotional
well-being to our youth, but how can Hip Hop feminists work to ensure
that feminist education is centered in the curricula of America's
schools, elementary through college for both male and female students?
n What are the defining contours of Hip Hop Feminism? If we are of the
understanding that a Hip Hop feminist is more than just a woman who
loves Hip Hop and feels conflicted about it, what does a Hip Hop
feminism look like?
n The continued sexual labor of women of color in a global market place
now depending on virtual "mass mediated" sex labor (e.g. music video and
pornography) as well as other forms of sex and gendered labor performed
by women of color still policed.
n Is Hip Hop feminism simply a US phenomenon? Should Hip Hop feminism
have a global agenda?
And how should Hip Hop feminism participate in the agendas of
transnational feminism(s)?
n What roles can Hip Hop feminism play in combating growing rate of
incarcerated woman of color and the expanding prison industrial complex?
For additional information contact:
Elaine Richardson [log in to unmask]
Please send four copies of the submission by July 30, 2005 to:
Gwendolyn D. Pough
Women's Studies Program
Syracuse University
208 Bowne Hall
Syracuse, New York 13244
Gwendolyn D. Pough
Associate Professor of Women's Studies and Writing Syracuse University
http://www.gwendolyndpough.com
"I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired."
Fannie Lou Hamer
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