The University of Chicago’s Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture, and the Lesbian/Gay Studies Project of the Center for Gender Studies invite paper proposals for a symposium to be held on March 7, 2009. The Symposium is titled, "Dimensions of Desire: Asian American Sexualities" and welcomes paper proposals on any aspect of sexuality among Asian American subjects or communities, both historically and in the present, from any disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspective. Proposals Due: Jan. 7, 2009.
Call for Papers
The University of Chicago’s Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture, and the
Lesbian/Gay Studies Project of the Center for Gender Studies invite paper proposals for a
symposium to be held on March 7, 2009, and which will become a special issue of
Amerasia Journal, the core journal in the field of Asian American Studies for the last 40
years. This initiative expands upon the journal’s first collection "Dimensions of Desire:
Asian American Sexualities" and takes us into the new century. David Eng and Amy
Sueyoshi will be our symposium keynote speakers.
We welcome paper proposals on any aspect of sexuality among Asian American subjects
or communities, both historically and in the present, from any disciplinary or
interdisciplinary perspective. Asian American sexuality has long been analyzed as a
residual category constituted in relationship to class, race, ethnicity, and gender, or some
intersection of these forms of differentiation. Clearly stratification principles operate in
the definition of all societies and social groups, but we are especially interested in papers
that look at sexuality in and of itself. Potential topics might include the study of
transexuality as lived experience, personal identity, or industry, the emergence of lesbian,
gay, and queer identities, bisexuality as a symbol and reality, the representation of
heterosexuality among Asian Americans, genitals as cultural symbols in the fetishization
of Asian Americans, promiscuity and its perils, sex work and the commercialization of
sexual tourism, sexuality and migration, sexual pedagogies, the relationship between sex
and religious faith, and any other topics where Asian American sexualities is the primary
focus of the work.
Proposals can be sent electronically to the following email addresses by January 7, 2009:
rgutierrez@uchicago.edu and rleong@ucla.edu.
Paper proposals sent U.S. mail must reach us by the same date, with one copy each should be sent to:
Ramón A. Gutiérrez,
Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture, 5733 South University Ave, Chicago,
Illinois,
and Russell Leong, Editor, Amerasia Journal,
UCLA Department of Asian American Studies, 3336 Rolfe Hall, Box 957225, Los Angeles, CA 90095-7225.
Paper proposals should not be more that two single-spaced pages and should be accompanied
by a short two-page resumé.
All travel and accommodation expenses will be paid by the University of Chicago for
those presenters selected for the symposium.
