[Air-L] Call for Papers: Gender, Sexuality, Information: A Reader

[Becca Dean]

*Call for Papers

Gender, Sexuality, Information: A Reader*

While information needs and behavior have become a central research concern
in library and information studies, the particularities of gender and
sexuality have yet to be centered in the field. Bringing queer and feminist
theories into conversation with current LIS research, Gender, Sexuality,
Information: A Reader addresses this gap, gathering existing research along
with new scholarship on the intersection of gender and sexuality and
information use. Contributors address a range of concerns, including
paradigms of information needs and behavior research, methodological
challenges, and current approaches to assessing and meeting LGBTQ and
women's information needs. Responding to emergent critiques of positivism
and behaviorism in LIS scholarship, this collection also seeks to trouble
what we think we mean when we talk about gender and sex, as well as
"information" and "behavior," as settled, stable constructs.

*Critical and Interdisciplinary Focus*

Current work in disciplines as diverse as legal theory, literary criticism,
design, anthropology, and technology studies exercise a profound impact on
LIS research. At the same time, the somewhat nebulous sub-disciplines within
our field, such as information seeking behavior, information structures,
archival studies, museology, information retrieval, and information policy,
have been connected by researchers in new and innovative ways. LIS
scholarship has also sought in recent years to challenge traditional
approaches and suggest new directions for research into the purposes,
practices, phenomenon, and organization of information. This reader serves
as a comprehensive multidisciplinary anthology where different
epistemologies and methodologies meet. It offers a timely and reasoned
contribution to feminist and queer LIS research and promotes perspectives
that can serve the cause of social justice.

*Possible topics*

Manuscripts can cover a range of topics, both professional and theoretical.
The editors strongly encourage submissions concerning the intersection of
gender and sexuality with race, ethnicity, religion, and socio-economics.
Possible topics include but are not limited to the following: cataloging and
classification, assessing user needs, information behavior, alternative
social science methods, records management, preservation, documentation,
oral history, collection development, curatorship, digital libraries and
archives, Internet studies, human-computer interaction, sexual health, sex
positive perspectives, activist or oppositional new media, informatics,
queer or feminist zines, web design and digital aesthetics, computer coding,
digital humanities, censorship and intellectual freedom, information
technology policy, children and young adult services, international and
comparative LIS issues, grant writing, administration and management, and
history of the book and publishing.

*Submission Guidelines*

The editors encourage practitioners, activists, and both established and
emerging scholars to submit manuscripts by September 1, 2011. Manuscripts
should rage from 5,000-8,000 words and use the Chicago Manual of Style
(Chicago University Press, 2010). Manuscripts should be submitted
electronically in Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) to
gsireader.submissions at gmail.com.

*About the editors*

Rebecca Dean and Patrick Keilty are PhD candidates in information studies
with a concentration in women's studies at the University of California, Los
Angeles.

*Contact*

UCLA Department of Information Studies
GSE&IS Building, Box 951520
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1520
Phone: (310) 825-8799
Dean's email: becdean[at]gmail[dot]com
Keilty's email: pkeilty[at]gmail[dot]com



For more information, please visit
http://is.gseis.ucla.edu/events/fliers/gender_reader.pdf.



-- 
REBECCA DEAN
PhD Candidate | Department of Information Studies, UCLA | 213.810.6740 |
becdean at gmail.com