|
20 years after the Flagstaff conference that resulted in the Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures, PGA identified Native American literary criticism shifts and issues:
“There was nothing then, and now there's everything.” We welcome essays that about her contributions to that shift, and/or that identify, assess, remedy, problems in the field.
“Something was said today … about answers. And I wanted to say, no, no, no. … It's not about answers; it's about good questions.” Building on any of the questions PGA’s work asks, how can we develop continuing lines of inquiry? For example, in Sacred Hoop she demonstrates that we need not reinvent the wheel with imagined gynocracies. How does the paradigm she describes inform Native American women’s literature?
“My own calling has always been of the spirit ...” What are the relationships between women’s speculative literature, criticism, and spirit work?
“Very little of our literature is the literature of protest, of oppression … Most of it is the literature of the spirit or the literature of ritual. Almost all of it is, call it political voice and drama, is always informed by the presence of this knowledge that there is always this other world, with which we are always engaged. It isn't over "there" somewhere; it's in our presence and our midst and we are in its presence and its midst.” Feminist speculative literature is predicated on “what ifs.” If we continue as we are – what might future dystopias be like? If we dismantle oppressive cultural schemata (race, class, sexuality, ability, gender) and live according to an egalitarian paradigm – what could future utopias be like? PGA’s work pushes these queries further. For example: what are the implications of an equi-present spirit world for the dystopia/utopia binary?
We seek critical articles, artwork, poetry, and fiction. Articles and fiction can be up to 15 pages. All submissions should conform to MLA standards (see www.mla.org). For further information, please contact special issue guest editor, Menoukha Case.
Please submit 4 copies on which your name, address, and contact points do NOT appear, accompanied by a separate page that includes title, genre, your name, address, phone, and email. Submissions with insufficient copies will not be sent through the review process. To submit, you must be a subscriber for calendar year 2009. To subscribe, include a check made out to FemSpec or subscribe on line and send a print out of the receipt with your manuscript.
|
