Call for Submissions: Rage, Struggle, Freedom

Call for Submissions

The Scholar and Feminist Online
Rage, Struggle, Freedom: Politics of Hope and Love
Margo Okazawa-Rey and Elif Sarican, Guest Editors

Deadline to Submit
October 2, 2023

The Scholar and Feminist Online is pleased to invite you to submit your work to our first-ever open call for a special issue on transnational feminist struggles and solidarities guest edited by Margo Okazawa-Rey and Elif Sarican, tentatively titled “Rage, Struggle, Freedom: Politics of Hope and Love.” The Scholar and Feminist Online is an online, open-access, peer-reviewed multidisciplinary journal published by the Barnard Center for Research on Women since 2003. Download the call or read below.

About the Issue

We find ourselves in an era that is marked by an unparalleled state of affairs. We live engulfed in a prevailing ‘culture of killing’ rooted in direct and indirect disregard for the profound value of all that live in the present and generations to come. This culture of killing threatens and destroys the natural world and human beings worldwide by the on-going extraction and exploitation of natural and human resources, the globalized trend toward militarism and armed conflict, the misogynist and racist violence enacted directly and indirectly by both state, non-state, and social actors. Our intention with this special issue is to consider how transnational feminist political struggle and thinking can offer a way forward in this moment of crisis. 

Our Vision for this Special Issue

By synthesizing the politics of love, anger, and resistance with hope and a steadfast dedication to meaningful freedom, feminist scholars and activists in the current century present numerous possibilities for a world markedly distinct from the one we now confront, unlocking the potential for abundant rewards. We believe that as feminists we have a responsibility for future generations, as well in the present time, to continue to struggle. 

Feminist scholars and revolutionaries have re-/awakened the value of methodologies that include mythology, emotion, meta- and the non-material. Scholars, activists, and artists such as Vanessa Thompson, bell hooks, Mari Matsuda, Hakima Abbas, Xhercis Mendez, Pregs Govender, Audre Lorde, and the Kurdish Women’s Movement have endeavored to link the transformation of societal structures, institutions, and systems with the practice of love and rage as a radical feminist praxis. Notably, Jineolojî, which is the science of women and knowledge production developed by the Kurdish Women’s Movement over many years of practical resistance and struggle, has contributed significantly to this discourse. These thinkers and methods generate alternatives to capitalist state-based modernity, which is rooted in individualism, transactional relationships, materialism, consumerism, and many forms of alienation from ourselves and the world, around the world.

Our goal is to showcase feminist movements and political thought from various parts of the world that demonstrate the influences, roles, and contributions historically and in the economic, political movements led by women, trans, and nonbinary people. We believe in the critical importance of connecting between and among global, regional, local, and on-the-ground struggles and resistances – historically, in our present and for our future. The layered, complex, and, often contradictory, relationship between ideology, political practice, and personal, interpersonal, and social relations  on these multiple scales is a richness rather than a limitation. By taking this approach , we hope to learn from those experiences and integrate those lessons into our own work at this critical juncture – including how to deal with contradictions in political thought, movements, and our lives. 

To this end, we seek submissions from activists, artists, musicians, poets and creative writers, revolutionaries, and scholars that respond to these questions and others you may have in this seemingly unprecedented historic time. We welcome written scholarly articles, individual and movement reflections, and opinion pieces. We also enthusiastically encourage art, poems, and video and creative multimedia forms. See below for submission guidelines.

Our Questions and Background

• What must we understand about history and how do we bring that understanding into our present and our future?
• What is “unspoken” and “unspeakable” in feminist movements and organizations? How should we begin to explore those?
  
• How do we, and must we, understand power dynamics–from interpersonal to global–in the current historic moment?
• What makes you rage? What makes you hopeful? What activates your imagination? What inspires you to “keep on, keeping on”? How do you express these ways of being and doing in your work and daily life? What are you flummoxed and frustrated by?
• How do you envision liberation and freedom? What is your vision of a genuinely secure world held together by cultures of life?

List of Possible Topics

• Rage as force for creativity and transformation       
• Re-writing history to include who and what events have been missing and treating history as alive.
• Decolonization & anticolonial politics: places, hearts, minds, communities
• Nation and feminist relationships to the state
• Demilitarization, abolition, and genuine security
• Feminist visions of alternatives to capitalism, sustainable/cooperative economies and of ecological justice
• Feminist education and teaching for freedom and liberation
• Feminist visions of of freedom and liberation
• The unspoken and unspeakable: class politics in feminist spaces and movements
• Pleasurable conversations among feminists engaged in radical, transnational and transformational movements
• Principles and practices of solidarity
• Transnational feminisms, feminist movements and formations
• Intergenerational understandings and conversations 
• Politics of grief and trauma as sources of inspiration and hope 
• Diverse forms of self-defense 
• Methodologies of art, music, and creative expressions in struggle
• Spirituality-rooted social movements
• Feminist responsibility and accountability in our movements and organizations – feminist justice

Genre Specifications

The Guest Editors of this special issue are eager to see work across genres, including academic and journalistic writing, poetry, fiction, experimental forms, graphic novel excerpts or stories, visual art, video, and music.

With the exception of rare solicited works, S&F Online publishes original, never before published work.

All work will be peer reviewed in some capacity. Academic work will be formally peer reviewed while creative work will be reviewed and edited by a relevant specialist. 

Submission Guidelines

Cover letter

Please include with your submission a cover letter of no more than 500 words. The cover letter should include a brief bio, an article abstract or artist’s statement, and your reasons for submitting to this special issue of The Scholar and Feminist Online. Submissions without cover letters will not be considered.

Academic, journalistic, creative nonfiction essays, fiction, and experimental prose

• Word limit: 3,000 – 6,000 words
• All prose submissions should be double-spaced and submitted as a Word document
• If work includes citations, please use the Chicago Manual of Style

Poetry

• 5 poems, or a maximum of 10 pages
• Poetry should be compiled into one document with page breaks between them. Please use the spacing that best represents your work. Please submit two versions, one Word doc, one PDF

Visual Art

• Image limit: 5
• Images should be submitted as a .jpeg in the largest size and highest resolution available
• Artist’s statements are not required, but are welcome at the artist’s discretion. If you would like an artist’s statement to be considered for publication, please include it with your submission formatted according to prose specifications (described above) and make note of it in your cover letter (described above)

Multimedia Art

• Video limit: 2 or a maximum of 10 minutes
• Audio or audiovisual media should be submitted as a .mp3 or .mp4 file at the highest resolution. For files over 25mb, please provide a download link.
• Artist’s statements are not required, but are welcome at the artist’s discretion. If you would like an artist’s statement to be considered for publication, please include it with your submission formatted according to prose specifications (described above) and make note of it in your cover letter (described above)

How to Submit

The deadline to submit your work for consideration is Monday, October 2, 2023. 

Please submit your cover letter and original work to sfonline@barnard.edu with the subject “Rage, Struggle, Freedom submission.”

Due to the volume of submissions, we will not be able to respond individually to everyone. If you receive an automatic reply, rest assured your submission has been received.

We look forward to reading, watching, and listening to your work.

Image credit: International Women’s Network Against Militarism