Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory - Special Issue: Punk Anteriors: Genealogy, Theory, Performance

Revisions to the historical meaning and framing of punk have circulated since its inception. This issue seeks to capture the performance of those revisions, conducting a genealogical mapping of the punk movement, scenes, music, ethics, and aesthetics utilizing queer and feminist punk analytics. While some valuable feminist critiques of punk have surfaced – mainly to lionize the riot grrrl movement – many uneasy questions around race, nation, and sexuality remain unarticulated in feminist and gender performance scholarship. The interdisciplinary articles in this issue will address the performances and politics of these exclusions.

We are interested in the temporality and spatiality of punk performances through a collective and archival process. We use the word “anteriors” in the title of this issue to frame the articles that address these punk spaces and remnants, plotting what comes before, anterior to, the telling of punk’s narratives in two senses: first, in the temporal sense which interrogates punk’s resistant genealogy; and, second, in the material and spatial sense of place, bodies, and archives. What can be situated in front of the generic narratives of punk’s beginnings and mainstays as a form of resistance? Where do articulations of racial formation, gender, nation, and sexuality fit into generic notions of punk origins, temporalities, and classisms? Can punk epistemologies be used to critique punk’s exclusions?

Possible topics include:

• Race, imperialism, and punk
• Women of color feminism and punk
• Diaspora and punk
• Transnational movements and festivals
• Zines and feminist interventions
• Riot grrrl
• Underground sound and gender
• Punk, history, and ethnic studies
• Aesthetic, performance, and music
• Queer punk and other questions of sexuality in performance
• Disidentifications, performance, and punk outlaws
• Subjugated histories and punk feminism
• Art and new media performance
• Punk responses to theory and punk theories
• Supplemental spaces of punk

Submissions should be 10,000 words or less in length and adhere to the current Chicago Manual of Style, author-date format. Questions and abstracts for review are welcome before the final deadline.

Complete essays and texts for consideration must be submitted by July 15th, 2011.

Please send all work to Fiona Ngô and Elizabeth Stinson via email (MS Word attachment): ngo@illinois.edu and stinson@nyu.edu.

Further submission guidelines can be found here.

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