[NextGenderation]
CALL FOR PAPERS
DEADLINE: September 15th
7th European Feminist Research Conference
Utrecht 4-7 June 2009
Panel "Tracing national identity in pornography"
In modern pornography, sexualized national, ethnic and racial
stereotypes have been common as has been highlighted by scholars like
Linda Williams, bell hooks or Patricia Hill Collins. Feminist,
postcolonial theory and representation critique have theorized the
intertwining practices of exotization and sexualization as strategies
of othering. As Stuart Hall has shown the spectacle of the other
articulated through stereotypes based on ethnicity, race and national
provenance becomes operative in constituting identity by its
constitutive outside. Following these theoretical approaches, we
suggest that in pornography topoi of nationality are articulated in
various ways and thus ask how they have invaded the sexual imaginary.
Practices of gazing at the ethnizised/racialized Other can e.g. be
found in pornographic plots. Pornography located in social/political
contexts such as the border land between the United States and Mexico
or in Eastern Europe attributes ?national? characteristics to men and
women from these countries. We are curious how nationality and
ethnicity/race have been fetishized in pornography and how this refers
to economic power relations in the context of globalization.
Studies of post World War II pornography show a growing
commercialization and internationalization. Mass production and mass
consumption led to a diversification of porn genres where companies
also have proliferated themselves in nationalistic terms.
?Nationality? serves to evoke the idea of specific porn genres branded
as e.g. Japanese sadomasochist porn or German gay porn. Notions of
national identity can also be traced in pornography advertised with
slogans like ?real British girl content? or ?Svenska flickor, Swedish
girls" making us wonder about how Swedishness, Britishness etc. are
articulated and how these articulations are gendered.
Even though the aspect of othering as well as nationalistic discourses
in pornography have been addressed by some authors, the relation
between pornography and national identity has not been theorized and
studied to any larger extent. This session thus aims at broadening the
understanding of the interplay between notions of nationality, gender,
sexuality and ethnicity/race in pornographic representations and
raises the question of the role of pornography in national identity
construction and vice versa.
We invite contributions from various disciplines including cultural,
historical and economic perspectives with a special focus on
pornography and nationality. Both theoretical and empirical
perspectives are valuable and we especially welcome contributions from
different parts of the world.
Deadline: 15th September 2008
Abstracts of not more than 300 words must be uploaded at:
http://www.genderstudies.nl/efrc/index.php?pageid=177
For further information on the conference see:
http://www.genderstudies.nl/efrc/index.php?pageid=171
For further information on the panel please contact:
Doris Allhutter
Austrian Academy of Sciences
doris.allhutter@???
and/or
Klara Arnberg
Umeå University, Sweden
klara.arnberg@???
