Photography has been traditionally used to document, record and preserve traces of the past such as in passports, permits and family albums. It has also been used as evidence in police work and courtrooms. Recent scholars have been interested in photography not as a record of reality but rather to understand its social function and the role photography has played in regulating modern societies through its various modes of representation. Photographic visuality can be fraught with meaning. For example, photography can be a platform to analyze the problems of working in a culture in which the feminine is defined as object for the masculine gaze. Moreover, signs of modernity, sexuality and patriarchy, to cite a few, can be identified in photographs to reveal gender, social and racial issues within a particular community. Not only can photography provide evidence for the presence of women in salient historical and social events but it can also serve as a means to analyze representation strategies and to examine complex gender relations in a particular context. Furthermore, photography can be read as a medium that empowers women by representing them as subjects/agents contrary to the broader representations of women as passive objects in photographs.
This special issue of Al-Raida on Women & Photography in the Arab World seeks papers addressing photography as a medium that challenges assumed gender roles/positions/attributes as seen in the media. It seeks contributions that examine the practice of women photographers in the Arab region as well as how women are represented in the photographs from a variety of perspectives and disciplines including arts, photo-journalism, history, anthropology, the social sciences, and cultural studies.
SUGGESTED TOPICS INCLUDE, BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO:
- Re-inventing “women” through photography
- The female as object/subject in the photograph
- Seeing through a woman’s lens
- Female authorship and subjectivity
- Female identity and the construction of self-image through photography
- Photography and feminism
- Visual autobiography through family albums (analog or digital)
- Photography and the archive
- Photography and memory
- Photography and its relationship to the public and the private
- Female desire reflected in photographs
SUBMISSION PROCEDURE
Complete manuscripts should be prepared in English in MS Word and adhere to the Submission Guidelines they should be 6000-8000 words, including notes and references. Papers should be accompanied by an abstract of 300 words. The manuscript must contain a separate title page that should include: the title of the manuscript; the name(s) and affiliation(s) of the author(s); full contact details of the author(s); the author's brief biographical statement. All papers will be subject to anonymous double peer review following submission. Authors will be provided with feedback from the editorial committee to assist them in the further development of their scholarly work.
Please send your submission as an e-mail attachment to the issue editor, Yasmine Nashabe at the following address: ynachabe@gmail.com and to the managing editor, Ms. Myriam Sfeir, at myriam.sfeir@lau.edu.lb on or before 30 May, 2012.
ABOUT THE JOURNAL
Al-Raida is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal published twice yearly by the Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World (IWSAW) at the Lebanese American University (LAU). Al-Raida was the first of its kind in the Arab world appearing first in May 1976, 3 years after the founding of the first institute for women’s studies in the Arab world (IWSAW).
Al-Raida publishes papers on topics across a wide range of academic disciplines that raise gender issues in historical and contemporary contexts. Through the research published, Al-Raida aims to create links across the conventional divides of scholarship and activism; "Western" and "Third World" feminisms; professionals and students; men and women.
The journal seeks both multidisciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives, and invites submissions in the form of scholarly articles, student papers and literary pieces. Papers are considered for the originality of their contribution to knowledge. In addition to publishing peer-reviewed articles, Al-Raida will continue to publish experimental pieces, testimonials, interviews, short stories, poems, and photographic essays. The journal also publishes book reviews and review articles on recent scholarly publications in the field of women and gender studies.
Articles must be based on original research or offer well grounded theoretical and methodological contributions. They must be written in a clear and concise style in English and they must not be under consideration by any other publication. The articles are submitted to a double blind peer reviewing process and must follow the style guidelines of the journal. All papers are double blind refereed and authors are provided with feedback from the editorial committee to assist them in the further development of their scholarly work.
Link: submission guidelines
CONTACT INFORMATION:
For inquiries: contact the editors at al-raida@lau.edu.lb
For submissions: email your papers to Yasmine Nashabe (ynachabe@gmail.com) and to the managing editor, Ms. Myriam Sfeir, at myriam.sfeir@lau.edu.lb
Website: http://www.lau.edu.lb/centers-institutes/iwsaw/publications/al-raida/
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