CFP: Chapter Proposals for "Transecology: Transgender Perspectives on the Environment"

Chapter proposals are invited for the edited book Transecology: Transgender Perspectives on the Environment, due by March 1, 2016. This volume will explore the intersection between transgender studies and ecology, with contributions from an international group of scholars representing a range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, including but not limited to such fields as philosophy, gender studies, environmental studies, literary criticism, history, religious studies, women’s studies, anthropology, sociology, psychology, economics, geography, and political science. Chapters drawing on the world's philosophical traditions, from antiquity to the present, are especially welcome.

Interested authors should send a 300-word abstract, 200-word biography, and sample of a previously published chapter or article to [email protected] by March 1, 2016. First drafts of full chapters (8,000 words) are due by September 1, 2016, and final versions are due November 1, 2016. Both transgender and cisgender contributors are welcome. Preference will be given to authors who have completed their doctorates. Only previously unpublished works will be considered.

Confirmed chapters include:

• “Transgender: An Expanded View of the Ecological Self,” Gail Grossman Freyne, LL.B., Ph.D., The Family Therapy & Counselling Centre, Australia
• “Transgender Nature in the In-between Ecopoetry of Yu-hong Chen,” Peter I-min Huang, Ph.D., Tamkang University, Taiwan
• “Ominous Foreboding: Transgender Prophecies in Clark-Bekederemo’s ‘Ivbie’ and Okara’s The Fisherman’s Invocation,” Idom T. Inyabri, Ph.D., University of Calabar, Nigeria
• “Transsexual/Transgender Survivors of Eco-Apocalypse: New Perspectives on Angela Carter’s The Passion of New Eve,” Julia Tofantšuk, Ph.D., Tallinn University, Estonia
• “Theorizing Transgender and Transhuman Possibilities: Empathy and Ecology in Élisabeth Vonarburg's Le Silence de la Cité,” Anna Bedford, Ph.D., St. Mary's College of Maryland, USA
• “Sexuate Ecologies and the Landmarking of Transgender Cultural Heritage,” Nicole Anae, Ph.D., Central Queensland University, Australia
• “Trans-Appalachia: A Millennial Roadmap to an Unromantic Relationship with the Mountains,” Theresa L. Burriss, Ph.D., Radford University, USA, and Izzy Broomfield, Stay Together Appalachian Youth (STAY), USA
• “Complimenting Contradictions of Gender Dualism: A Study on the Geopolitics of Binary Gender Ecology in Hinduism," Swapna Gopinath, Ph.D., University of Kerala, India, Sony Jalarajan Raj, Ph.D., MacEwan University, Canada, and Soumya Jose, Ph.D., VIT University, India

The relationship between gender and the environment has been studied extensively, with much attention given to the problems of relying on rigid dualities such as male/female and nature/culture. This volume seeks to provide novel insights into ecological and environmental issues by drawing on specifically transgender perspectives. Proposals that explicitly critique cisnormativity and cissexism are especially welcome. For purposes of this volume, the meaning of transgender will follow GLAAD’s definition: “Transgender is a term used to describe people whose gender identity differs from the sex the doctor marked on their birth certificate. Gender identity is a person's internal, personal sense of being a man or a woman (or someone outside of that gender binary). For transgender people, the sex they were assigned at birth and their own internal gender identity do not match.”

The editor of Transecology: Transgender Perspectives on the Environment, Douglas Vakoch, is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, as well as general editor of Lexington Books’ Ecocritical Theory and Practice Series. Vakoch’s earlier edited books include Ecofeminism and Rhetoric: Critical Perspectives on Sex, Technology, and Discourse (2011), Feminist Ecocriticism: Environment, Women, and Literature (2012), and (with Fernando Castrillón) Ecopsychology, Phenomenology, and the Environment: The Experience of Nature (2014).