Call for Papers: Thomas Pynchon, Sex, and Gender. Deadline: December 1, 2015

[Pynchon Essay Collection]

*Call for Papers: Thomas Pynchon, Sex, and Gender*


*A collection of essays to be edited by Ali Chetwynd (University of
Michigan), Joanna Freer (University of Exeter), Georgios Maragos
(Independent Scholar). *


Masculinist, misogynist, phallo‐centric, pornographic – critics have long
debated whether the formal experimentation, irony and ambiguity of
canonical male postmodernists complicates such criticisms of their subject
matter, and here as so often Thomas Pynchon has been an exemplary figure.
>From some of the earliest anthologised Pynchon criticism until the present
day, deep critical divisions have persisted as to whether his
representations of women are sexist, feminist, or reflective of a more
general misanthropy, whether his writing of sex is boorishly pornographic
or transgressively liberating, whether queer identities are celebrated or
mocked, whether his experimental forms are innately masculinist or
democratically all-encompassing.


Yet for all their longevity, these questions have remained on the margins
of Pynchon criticism, and after a spike in articles and essays about his
sexual and gender politics in the few years either side of the millennium,
engagement with them has slowed to a trickle. Does this mean that
everything there is to be said about Thomas Pynchon, sex, and gender has
now been said? We don’t think so: we propose instead the first book‐length
investigation of Pynchon’s work to put these topics at its core. Following
a 2015 International Pynchon Week at which gender and sexual politics were
the dominant thread from first day to last, we seek contributions to a
collection of essays that will open up fresh avenues in the study of such
matters, furthering or moving beyond the debates mentioned above, both in
Pynchon’s work and in the whole field of postmodern fiction. We’ve already
heard from a number of university and commercial presses interested in
reading the full proposal once we’ve considered all abstracts, and we look
forward to your submissions.


Abstracts on any topic that conceivably falls under the rubric of the
collection’s title are welcome. Potential topics for papers might include
but are not limited to:


-Gendering/Femininity/Masculinity/QueerIdentities

-Queer sexualities

-The politics of sexual (non-)transgression/ Gender, sex and activism

-Writing sex/Sex and the postmodern/Gender and experimental literary forms

-Feminism/Anti‐feminism/Neo‐Feminism/Post‐feminism

-Economic/Labour contexts to gender and sex

-Visuality/Pornography/Media

-Comparative treatments of gender in Pynchon and other innovative fiction


Given the proposals already received, we’re especially interested in papers
that address any of the following: *Mason & Dixon*, *Against the Day*,
*Vineland*, the short fiction, queer sexuality, contemporary theory in
sexuality studies, the gender politics of non‐realist fictive form,
Pynchon’s defences and rewritings of the family unit, sex work,
literature’s relation to activism, the limits and potential of
transgression, and gender’s significance in the paratextual contexts of
Pynchon’s career.


Please submit a 500‐word chapter proposal that clearly explains how it will
contribute to, revise, or depart from existing debates around sex and
gender in Pynchon and his generation by 1st December 2015. See the
bibliography of work on the topic at
https://www.academia.edu/15616240/Pynchon_Sex_and_Gender_Bibliography for a
sense of those debates. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by
January. For those accepted, we anticipate a deadline for full chapter
submission around June 2016. Proposals should be sent to
pynchonessaycollection at gmail.com as Word documents or pdfs. Enquiries can
be directed to the same email address.
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