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CFP: Reproductive Health History
(Steven Maynard/23 September
2011)
Special Session of the Canadian
Society for the History of Medicine Annual Meeting, University of Waterloo
in June 2012
Women’s bodies have always been
sites of struggle – over meanings and for control. The most polarizing conflicts involve
women’s reproductive health and autonomy.
Women’s bodies are a terrain contested by and between the medical
establishment, the state, churches, the media, and activists. Battles over
meanings and rights also pit men against women and women against one
another. Further complicating these
conflicts are issues of race, class, gender, and heteronormativity. Papers
in this panel should seek to illuminate these struggles for meaning and
control in innovative ways.
Subjects may include, but are
not limited to:
-abortion
-contraception
-pregnancy
-sterilization
-in/fertility, treatments and
technologies
-surrogacy
-adoption
-gynaecological health
-menopause
-sexuality
-breastfeeding
-reproductive health activism
Scholars are invited to submit
proposals of 250-300 words, along with a 1-page CV, by November 30, 2011. For
more information or to submit a proposal, please contact Shannon Stettner (rhhincanada@gmail.com). Following
the conference a CFP will be issued inviting scholars to submit articles
for a special issue of the Canadian
Bulletin of Medical History on Reproductive Health History in Canada,
guest edited by Shannon Stettner and Tracy Penny Light, with the aim of
publishing in 2014.
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CFP: ‘We Demand’ Demands Your Paper!
(Steven Maynard/19 August 2011)
Not one, but two calls for
papers have gone out from the folks at the “We
Demand” conference. An anthology to be published by UBC Press and a
special issue of the Journal of Canadian
Studies will feature papers from the conference. With these calls for
papers, the editors are also inviting others to contribute.
History/Sex/Activism in Canada, edited by Patrizia
Gentile
Since the 1969 passage of the Omnibus Bill legalizing birth control and
decriminalizing homosexual acts between adults, Canada has enjoyed a
reputation as on the cutting edge of progressive sexual
politics. Canadian debates surrounding obscenity laws, same-sex
marriage, recognition of transgender health rights, human rights
legislation, queers and immigration policies, and constitutional challenges
to sex worker legislation resulted in significant policy changes and the
impact of these actions continue to reverberate internationally. Abstracts
are invited for an edited collection on the history of sexuality in
Canada. Especially encouraged are papers that critically engage
sexuality with normative and hegemonic notions of race, class, age,
ability, gender, citizenship, and nation (including problematizing the idea
of Canada) from a historical perspective. Other potential topic areas
include but are not limited to:
• colonialism, race, violence and sexuality
• sexuality and space
• sexuality and nation/citizenship
• sex education
• childhood/adolescence and sexuality
• the aging/aged body and sexuality
• medical/scientific discourses and sexuality
• dis/ability and sexuality
• trans- and sexuality
• (re) productive bodies and sexuality (eg. sexuality and the
workplace;
pregnancy and sexuality)
This anthology will be targeted for use in post-secondary courses in
Canadian history, the history of sexuality, gender history, sexuality
studies, sociology, health studies, cultural studies, urban studies, and
women’s and gender studies. Interested authors should submit a 300 - 500
word abstract, working title and brief biography by September 30, 2011. The
editor will review all proposals and authors of accepted proposals will be
invited to contribute to the collection. Completed manuscripts
(6000-8000 words) will be due February 1, 2012. All manuscripts will be
externally peer reviewed. Please send queries and submissions to: patrizia_gentile@carleton.ca
We Demand!”: Sexuality and Activism in Canada
Special Theme Issue of the Journal of
Canadian Studies
Guest Editor: David S. Churchill
Associate Editor, JCS: Matthew Hayday
On August 28, 1971, activists rallied in front of the Parliament Buildings
in Ottawa and the Vancouver Courthouse. Occurring two years after the
decriminalization of a limited number of homosexual sexual acts, these were
the first large-scale public gatherings in support of lesbian and gay
rights in Canada. As part of these demonstrations, the activists
proclaimed their “We Demand!” manifesto, which laid out their agenda to
change Canadian laws and culture around the regulation of sexuality.
Forty years later, Canada is viewed internationally as a leader in
progressive sexual politics, although some of the objectives of the “We
Demand” manifesto remain unattained or only partly achieved. Canadian
debates concerning birth control and abortion, obscenity laws, same-sex
marriage, recognition of transgender health rights, human rights
legislation, and queers and immigration policies resulted in significant
legal and policy changes, and these actions have reverberated around the
globe. This special issue of the Journal
of Canadian Studies, inspired by the “We Demand: History/Sex/Activism
in Canada” conference hosted by Simon Fraser University, will provide an
opportunity to assess the impact of these developments on the social,
cultural, political, and historical landscape in Canada and beyond.
Although this special issue will be primarily oriented around the
intersections between sexuality and activism in Canada, we invite
submissions more broadly connected to lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender,
two-spirit, and queer studies and sexuality in Canada. We welcome
submissions from a wide array of academic disciplines, particularly
articles which address these issues from an interdisciplinary
perspective.
Please send brief proposals (250-500 words, plus a short CV) to David
Churchill churchil@cc.umanitoba.ca
and Matthew Hayday mhayday@uoguelph.ca
by November 15, 2011. Full articles (7,000-10,000 words, plus
notes/bibliography) will be due by January 15, 2012. All papers will
undergo a formal peer review process through the Journal of Canadian Studies.
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New Book: Sex and Violence in the ‘Wild West’
(Steven Maynard/ 12 August 2011)
 A major new book on the history of sexual violence
against women in Western Canada is just about to be released from UBC Press
for the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History. Lesley Erickson’s Westward Bound: Sex, Violence, the Law,
and the Making of a Settler Society is a detailed study of criminal
court cases involving sexual offences against women. The Press’s website
describes the book this way:
“Westward Bound debunks
the myth of Canada’s peaceful West and its masculine conceptions of law and
violence by focusing on criminal cases involving women between 1886 and
1940. Rather than a desire to protect, official responses to the most
intimate or violent acts betrayed an impulse to shore up the liberal order
by maintaining boundaries between men and women, Native people and
newcomers, and capital and labour. Victims and accused could only hope to
harness entrenched ideas about masculinity, femininity, race, and class in
their favour. This fascinating exploration of hegemony and resistance in
key contact zones draws prairie Canada into larger debates about law,
colonialism, and nation building.”
For further information and a
sample chapter, go to:
http://www.ubcpress.ca/books/pdf/chapters/2011/WestwardBound.pdf
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“Looking Back on Pride” by Mathieu Brûlé
(Steven Maynard/3 August 2011)
Mathieu Brûlé, a doctoral
candidate in history at York University, sketches the four-decade-long and
often-troubled relationship between the City of Toronto and its queer
communities. The overview was prompted by Mayor Rob Ford’s decision to
forgo the 16-year tradition of mayoral participation in Pride festivities
in favour of his family cottage. Brûlé’s piece can be found at activehistory.
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“John McCrae ‘gay’? No way” by Steven Maynard
(Steven Maynard/2 August 2011)
The simplistic, if familiar,
‘was he or wasn’t he?’ approach to the history of sexuality has been on
full view in the pages of the Ottawa
Citizen of late. The ‘debate’ centers on the nature of the relationship
between John McCrae, author of “In Flanders Fields,” and his friend and
former student, Alexis Helmer. The controversy erupted when Ottawa’s gay
community newspaper suggested that McCrae might have been
“gay” and Helmer his “probable lover.” The Citizen picked up the story, assembling a
number of experts critical of the very idea of a gay McCrae. Neither the
gay paper nor the Citizen
interviewed a historian of sexuality. I weighed in on the discussion in an op-ed piece, offering a different approach. Back
in 1999, a similar controversy emerged over Charlotte Whitton
when the last box of her personal papers was opened at the national
archives.
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“What We Demanded, What We Got” by Rick Bébout
(Steven Maynard/25
July 2011)
In the lead-up to
the conference, “We Demand: History/Sex/Activism in Canada” (see the news
item below), I want to share several resources put together by Rick Bébout
which are archived on the website of the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives.
Back in 1997, Rick had the idea to track the fate of the original ten
demands that made up the “We Demand” manifesto and which were read out at
the demonstration on Parliament Hill in August of 1971. What he discovered
he wrote up in “What We Demanded, What We Got: Follow-up to ‘We
Demand,’ 1971.” Rick was nothing if not a stickler for historical
detail and a thorough researcher, so it’s no surprise he also included a
background paper that lists and summarizes the more than 170
stories from The Body Politic and
Xtra he read in preparation for
“What We Got.” Finally, Rick also included and introduced the original “We
Demand” manifesto as it was published in the first issue of The Body Politic, which appeared in
November/December of 1971. Rick’s introduction featured some reflections on
“We Demand” by Herb Spiers, one of the original drafters of the
document, who died this past March. For those who don’t know, Rick was a
gay liberationist and queer community historian. His keen sense of history
stemmed in part from his role as a long-time member of the collective that
produced The Body Politic and
whose records, maintained by the CLGA, he helped to inventory. Rick died in June of 2009. For an
indication of his queer and creative imagination, see his website.
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Conference on the History of Sexuality in Canada – August
2011!
(Steven Maynard/20 July 2011)
"We
Demand": History/Sex/Activism in Canada / « Nous demandons »: Histoire/Sexe/Activisme
au Canada is the first conference in Canada since 1993 devoted to the
history of sexuality. Organized by the Canadian Committee on the History of
Sexuality/ Comité canadien d’histoire de la sexualité, the conference will
be held at the Coast Plaza Hotel in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia,
August 26-28th, 2011. The aim of the conference is to facilitate, promote,
and expand the study of sexuality and activism in Canada from a historical
perspective. Designed to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the first
national gay liberation action in Ottawa and Vancouver, "We
Demand" will interrogate connections between history, sexuality,
theory, activism, and the archives. As such, the conference will engage an
estimated 140 participants in a three-day exploration of a broad range of
issues and a variety of methodological and disciplinary approaches
particular to the study of sexuality.
The “We Demand”
conference features some of the most important critical thinkers and
activists in the field today. Among them are keynote speakers Ann
Cvetkovich, an internationally renowned cultural theorist, and Jessica Yee,
Executive Director of the Native Youth Sexual Health Network. Ann
Cvetkovich is the author of An
Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures
(Duke, 2003), which includes an oral history project with ACT UP/NY’s
lesbians. Her work is at the leading edge of queer theory and engages with
methodological and interpretive issues of relevance to a wide range of
scholars. Jessica Yee is a sexual rights activist who currently serves as
the first Chair of the National Aboriginal Youth Council at the Canadian
Aboriginal AIDS Network and is also Chair of the International Indigenous
HIV/AIDS Working Group.
The conference includes
two plenary sessions that anchor the conference themes. “History as
Activism” explores the role assumed by the history of sexuality in
progressive sexual political struggles in North America and features five
founders of the history of sexuality in Canada: Mary-Louise Adams, Line
Chamberland, Karen Dubinsky, Steven Maynard and Becki Ross. “Activism as
History” offers historical reflections on the history of activism relating
to sexuality and features leading activists in the area of sexual rights politics:
activist/academic Gary Kinsman, bookstore manager and anti-censorship
activist Janine Fuller, lawyer barbara findlay, BC queer community
archivist Ron Dutton, and long-time lesbian activist Amy Gottlieb. Peter
Dickinson, a leading expert on queer culture and guest curator of the
Pacific Cinémathèque film program and Tom Waugh, a scholar and prolific
writer on queer film, especially in Canada, will also participate as
presenters. A preliminary program and abstracts for each presentation are
available through the links at the bottom and the right hand side of this
page.
For almost half a
century Canada has enjoyed an international reputation as a leader in
progressive sexual politics. Canadian debates concerning birth control and
abortion, obscenity laws, same-sex marriage, recognition of transgender
health rights, human rights legislation, and queers and immigration
policies resulted in significant legal and policy changes, and these
actions have reverberated around the globe. This conference is an opportunity
to assess the impact of these developments on the social, cultural,
political, and historical landscape in Canada and beyond.
The simultaneous
rise of Canadian queer culture is also a focal point for this conference. A
four day parallel film program hosted by Pacific Cinémathèque uses film
screenings and panel discussions to explore the role of Canadian cinema in
post-1960s sexual politics. It is open to the public, thus providing an
opportunity to connect scholars from across the nation and residents of the
broader Lower Mainland community.
The conference is
open to the public. Members of the public can register on site but as
seating is limited, we recommend advance registration. Check out the
conference website:
http://ocs.sfu.ca/history/index.php/wedemand/2011
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