CFP: 2023 Feminist Ethics and Social Theory (FEAST) Conference

The Association for Feminist Ethics and Social Theory (FEAST) invites submissions for the Fall 2023 conference, to take place Oct 20 and 21, 2023, online-only.

Keynote speaker: Falguni Sheth

Extended Submission deadline: June 7, 2023

This year’s theme is South Asian/Diaspora Feminist Discourse.

Submissions can address the theme or any topic related to typical FEAST issues of feminist philosophy / feminist ethics / feminist epistemology / feminist political theory and similar topics related to oppression theory.

This year’s conference also intends to honor the work of Saba Mahmood. 

Saba Mahmood’s work on understanding the role of religion in public life, modernity, and secularism helped theorists to question colonial assumptions about religion and the secular. She forged new ways of understanding agency, feminism, relational subjectivity, and religious freedom. Her impact was felt across a vast array of disciplines, including philosophy, anthropology, critical theory, feminist theory, history, religious studies, and political science.

We offer the following terms as generative areas for reflection for feminist ethics, social theory, and social justice activists:

• Racialization of Muslim women
• Racialized enforcement of criminal and national security laws
• Islamophobic patriarchy
• Anti-capitalist, decolonial South Asian feminism
• Aurat march in Pakistan
• Dalit feminist movement in India
• 1971 Liberation war via feminist lens
• War of terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan via a feminist lens
• Gendered oppression and the precarity of citizenship
• Feminist solidarity between Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka 
• Bengali and Jumma Women’s Movement in Bangladesh
• State sponsored militarism and indigenous movements
• Recognising complicity and colonial violence in solidarity work
• Colonial role of IMF
• Feminist critiques to imperialism and racial capitalism
• Women’s rights and economic sanctions
• Islamic feminism broadly
• Imposed and practiced modesty in South Asia
• Decolonial feminism
• Anti-imperialist feminism
• BJP & anti-Muslim movements
• 1947 Independence via decolonial feminist lens
• Queer politics & Khuwaja Sira community struggles
• Feminist activism in the Global South and decolonial feminist praxis
• Feminist foreign policy of the U.S.
• U.S. imperial violence and disability
• Bridges between South Asian feminist movements in Global South and South Asian diaspora feminist movements in Global North

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

Please send your submission, in one document (as Word or other text file), to [email protected] by June 7, 2023. Please anonymize the file before submission.

In the body of the email message, please include:

1) title of your paper, panel, flash presentation, or workshop;

2) your name;

3) your institutional affiliation; and

4) your email address.

All submissions will be anonymously reviewed. We especially encourage feminist scholars and knowledge producers located in and/or from South Asia. You do not need to be a member of FEAST to submit, but you must become a member once your paper is accepted for the conference (membership info at: https://www.pdcnet.org/afeast/Association-for-Feminist-Ethics-and-Social-Theory-(FEAST)). 

Individual Papers

Please submit an extended abstract (750–1000 words) and preliminary bibliography for anonymous review. Your document should include: paper title, extended abstract, and bibliography, with no identifying information. The word count (max. 1000 not including bibliography) should appear on the top of the first page of your submission.

Panels

Please clearly mark your submission as a panel submission both in the body of the e-mail and on the submission itself. Your submission should include the panel title, a short panel description (150-250 words) and all three extended abstracts and word counts (750-1000 words for each paper) in one document. Each paper within the panel should also have a preliminary bibliography.

Flash Presentations

Please clearly mark your submission as a flash presentation in your email. Flash presentations will be allotted 6-9 min and an equal amount of time for audience engagement. The aim is to provide a structured yet accessible platform for activist/scholarly exchange. The presenter can do a traditional poster presentation or utilize any creative way of presenting their knowledge. For your submission, please include an anonymized abstract of 500-750 words (.doc, .docx, or .pdf) extended abstract of your presentation.

Workshops

Workshops are expected to be interactive. Given that this is an online-only conference, we encourage workshop formats that maximize online features of break out rooms, polls, or anything that maintains audience interaction. Attached to the email, please include an anonymized abstract of 500-750 words (.doc, .docx, or .pdf) and indicate how audience members will participate in the session, brief description of planned activities for the audience, and an explanation of contribution to the conference’s subject-matter(s), and/or what you hope the audience will take away from it.

For more information, contact Program Committee Chair, Saba Fatima at [email protected].