(See English below.)

Tímaritið Nordic Journal for Masculinity Studies kallar eftir greinum í sérrit vorið 2012, en það mun bera titilinn „Sexography: The Situated study of men´s sexual selves“. Skilafrestur greina er til 6. júlí 2011.

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Call:

NORMA –Nordic Journal for Masculinity Studies

Special issue, Spring 2012:

*Sexography: The situated study of men’s sexual selves*

Theme editor: Bjarke Oxlund, University of Copenhagen

In The history of sexuality, Foucault famously argued that sexuality is a particularly dense transfer point of power, which led him to develop an analytic that made it possible to study sex in terms of power (1981). His idea was that power operates through the discursive production of sexuality and subjects, emphasizing that the power mechanisms of sexuality are socially constructed, unstable, and historically situated. In Technologies of the Self, however, Foucault became more interested in the interaction between self and others and in the domination that an individual exercises upon himself by means of the technologies of the self (1984). Uniting Foucault’s two different approaches, this special issue therefore asks in which ways sexuality has become a technology of the self in the lives of men around the world.

This approach is congruent with the studies found in a recent volume edited by Kimmel (2007), where sex and sexuality is seen as a core constituent of the self. Inspired by Gagnon and Simon (1998) the studies in the volume draw on the conceptualization of sexual scripts in order to highlight the ways in which selves and identities are constructed around sexual activity. Pertaining at one and the same time to the cultural, the interpersonal, and the intrapsychic levels of sexuality, the concept of sexual scripts allows the analyst to simultaneously look at the larger frameworks of sexual experience, the routine patterns of sexuality in specific settings, as well as the internal dialogues about internalized cultural expectations.

In order to embrace these multiple approaches, this call for abstract invokes the concept of ‘sexography’. On the one hand the postfix–graphy can be used to indicate a form of writing or a way of representing something, but on the other it can also be used to indicate an art or a descriptive science.  Here the use of the term sexography should be understood in both these senses – as a descriptive approach to the study of men’s sexual selves and as a way of writing up an ethnographic study of sexuality in a particular time and place. The aim is thus to bring together qualitative research articles that deal with the sexual selves of men placed in different contexts in order to facilitate a cross-cultural comparison and discussion.

We welcome articles which analyze men’s sexual selves both in terms of how they come into being and how they relate to broader levels of discourse, meaning, and structure in the settings under study. The wording of this call is intentionally kept open to accommodate studies of the sexual selves of all men irrespective of age, sexual orientation, social status, ethnicity, or location. Giving emphasis to the descriptive dimension, the contributions are expected to be empirically rich, although the articles should of course be elucidated by theoretical insights as well. The main questions will be how the sexual experiences, desires, and aspirations of men are developed, articulated and practiced in particular social and cultural contexts.

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Abstracts should be submitted before 6^th July 2011

To: bjarke.oxlund@anthro.ku.dk