Call for Papers: Special Issue of Tulsa Studies in Women¹s Literature

     ³Theorizing Breast Cancer: Narrative, Politics, Memory²

We invite proposals for a special issue of Tulsa Studies in Women¹s
Literature that will focus on feminist theories of embodiment in breast
cancer narratives, with particular emphasis on transnational, queer,
environmental, genetic, biomedical/bioethical, and activist discourses. We
seek traditional scholarly or mixed-genre essays that analyze literary and
cultural representations of breast cancer in fiction, autobiography/memoir,
and/or visual culture and that explore topics such as the following:

1)    Women¹s representations of medicalization, e.g. breast cancer
diagnosis, lumpectomy, mastectomy, radiation, chemotherapy, other
pharmaceutical or technological interventions, and decline or recovery;
2)    The shifting politics of prosthesis, reconstruction, breast cancer
culture, and/or survivor discourses;
3)    Historiographies of breast cancer, including pre-history of cancer
narrative as a defined topic;
4)    Theories of breast cancer in relation to social determinants of
literary and cultural representations;
5)    Current and historicized breast cancer narratives as sites of public
memory and individual/communal mourning;
6)    The politics of location and/or theories of intersectionality in
breast cancer narratives as regards racial-ethnic, class, queer, and/or
disabled identities;
7)    The aesthetic and representational strategies of writers,
photographers, and artists who document breast cancer¹s physical and/or
psychological terrain;
8)    Possible links among breast cancer, environmental carcinogens, and
corporate cultures;
9)    The ethics and efficacy of genetic testing, prophylactic mastectomy,
and previvor discourses;
10) Breast cancer narratives in popular culture, including film narrative,
television, blogs, and websites.

All essays should be informed by recent feminist scholarship on illness,
medicalization, and cancer in medical humanities or narrative medicine and
in literary, gender, cultural, visual, disability, and/or trauma studies. In
the U.S. alone more than 178,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer each
year, and 40,000 die of this disease. Worldwide breast cancer rates are
rising, and current projections suggest that within ten years, 70% of all
breast cancer will affect women from the Global South. This issue of TSWL
will examine a wide range of visual and verbal narratives that explore the
contours of illness, survival, and memorialization.

Essays should be 6000-9000 words (excluding footnotes and bibliography),
should conform to the 15th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, and
should be submitted in Microsoft Word. Please send detailed abstracts by
August 1, 2012 to both of us and to TSWL editor Laura Stevens
(laura-stevens@utulsa.edu). Final essays, subsequent to acceptance of
abstracts, will be due by January 4, 2013.

Mary K. DeShazer (deshazer@wfu.edu)       Anita Helle
(ahelle@oregonstate.edu)
Professor of English and                                 Professor of
English; Transitional Director,
Women¹s and Gender Studies                        School of Writing,
Literature, and Film
Wake Forest University                                 Oregon State
University