>>PUB: hip hop
feminism anthology
=
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Home Girls, Make Some Noise!: Hip Hop Feminism Anthology
Feminism, rap music, and Hip Hop culture, at first glance, do not
appear to
be likely cohorts. In the male-driven, testosterone filled world of Hip
Hop
culture and rap music labeling oneself a feminist is not a political
stance
easily taken. Thus, many women involved with Hip Hop culture do not
take on the
label of feminist even as their actions imply feminist beliefs and
leanings. Much
of the strong criticisms of rap music have been about the music’s
sexism and
misogyny. And much of the attention focused on sex and gender have been
in
terms of constructions of Black masculinity, and rap music as a vehicle
for Black
male posturing. A lot of attention has been paid to the impact rap
music and
the masculine space of Hip Hop culture has on the development of Black
male
identities. In this volume, the editors strive to understand
constructions of
Hip Hop feminism, gender, and sexuality in Hip Hop culture, rap music
and these
in transnational contexts.
We take the stance that Hip Hop is a cultural phenomenon that expands
farther
than rap music. Hip Hop has been defined by many as a way of life that
encompasses everything from way of dress to manner of speech. Hip Hop
as a culture
originally included graffiti writing, d-jaying, break dancing, and rap
music.
It has recently expanded to include genres such as film, spoken word,
autobiographies, literature, journalism, and activism. It has also
expanded enough to
include its own brand of feminism. The work of Hip Hop feminist writers
such as
Ayana Byrd, Denise Cooper, Eisa Davis, Eisa Nefertari Ulen, shani
jamilla,
dream hampton, Joan Morgan, Tara Roberts, Kristal Brent-Zook, and
Angela Ards is
expanding black feminist theory and black women’s intellectual
traditions in
fascinating ways. What started out as a few young black feminist women
who
loved Hip Hop and who tried to mesh that love with their
feminist/womanist
consciousness is now a rich body of articles, essays, poetry, and
creative
non-fiction.
We seek to complicate understandings of Hip Hop as a male space by
including
and identifying the women who were always involved with the culture and
offering Hip Hop feminist critiques of the music and the culture. We
seek to explore
Hip Hop as a worldview, as an epistemology grounded in the experiences
of
communities of color under advanced capitalism, as a cultural site for
rearticulating identity and sexual politics. We are particularly
interested in seeing
submissions of critical essays and cultural critiques, interviews,
creative
non-fiction and personal narratives, fiction, poetry, and artwork. We
also
encourage submissions from women working within the Hip Hop sphere, Hip
Hop feminists
and activists “on the ground,” as well as scholars, writers, and
journalists. We do not wish to reify the scholar/activist dichotomy,
but we want to
encourage as broad a discussion of the possibilities of Hip Hop
Feminism as
possible and we want to be sure multiple voices and perspectives are
represented in
the anthology. All work submitted must be original and should not have
been
published elsewhere.
Word Count/Page Limits:
Critical Essays and Cultural Critiques – 25 pages (including
bibliography)
6500 words
Interviews – 10 pages/2500 words
Creative Non-Fiction and Personal Narratives – 20 pages/5000 words
Fiction – 20 pages/5000 words
Poetry/Rhymes – No more than 3 pages per poem/rhyme and 3 poems per
poet/mc
Artwork – Up to three pieces per artist
Editors:
Gwendolyn Pough is an Associate Professor of Women’s Studies, Writing,
and
Rhetoric at Syracuse University and the author of Check It While I
Wreck It;
Black Womanhood, Hip-Hop Culture and the Public Sphere, Northeastern
University
Press 2004.
Elaine Richardson is an Associate Professor of English at Penn State
University and the author of African American Literacies (2003) and the
forthcoming
Hip Hop Literacies both from Routledge Press.
Rachel Raimist is a Hip Hop feminist filmmaker, scholar and activist.
Her
film credits include the award-winning feature length documentaries
Freestyle,
Nobody Knows My Name, and Garbage, Gangsters, and Greed. She is a
doctoral
student in Feminist Studies at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.
Aisha S. Durham is an essayist and Editorial Assistant for several
cultural
studies journals, including Qualitative Inquiry where her performance
work is
featured. Durham’s dissertation research examining Hip Hop feminism
will be
featured in an upcoming anthology and documentary about Hip Hop
culture. She is a
doctoral candidate in the Institute of Communications Research at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Additional themes to be explored:
- Has Hip Hop feminism moved beyond the conflicted stance of loving Hip
Hop,
being a feminist, and meshing the two? What is next? What should Hip Hop
feminism be doing?
-Now that we have at l
