Via H-Law, we have the following Call for Papers:
CFP: The History and Politics of Abortion
An edited collection by Tracy Penny Light and Shannon Stettner
Women’s bodies have always been sites of struggle – over meanings and
for control. The most polarizing conflicts involve women’s reproductive
autonomy. Around the world women continue to fight for or to retain
hard won abortion rights. Women’s experiences with abortion are
contested by and between the medical establishment, the state, churches,
the media, and activists. Further complicating these conflicts are
issues of race, class, gender, and heteronormativity. This collection
seeks to publish works on the history and politics of abortion
worldwide. We invite theoretical, country-specific, and transnational
comparative pieces.
Topics may include, but are not limited to:
-Shifting (historical/political) meanings of abortion
-The place of women in abortion politics/history
-Historical constructions of the fetus
-“Pro-choice” and “pro-life” activism
-Reproductive justice movement
-The role of the state in abortion politics
- The role of the medical profession in abortion politics
-The influence of medical advancements on abortion politics/history
-Abortion and sexuality
Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words and a one-page CV to Tracy Penny Light. Article abstracts due November 30, 2012.
Tracy Penny Light is Director of Women’s Studies at the University of
Waterloo and Associate Professor in the Sexuality, Marriage, and Family
Studies and History departments at St. Jerome’s University (University
of Waterloo). Her research explores the medical discourse on gender and
sexuality in Canada and the United States in the twentieth century.
Her forthcoming book, Shifting Interests: The Medical Discourse on
Abortion in English Canada, 1850-1969 (Wilfrid Laurier University Press)
explores the ways that the medical profession has understood abortion
practices in the past. She has published articles on masculinity and
the feminine ideal in Canada and the United States as well as on
developing historical thinking in students. She is also co-editing two
forthcoming books: Bodily Subjects: Essays on Gender and Health,
1800-2000 (with Wendy Mitchinson and Barbara Brookes) and a book on
feminist pedagogy in higher education (with Jane Nicholas and Renee
Bondy).
Shannon Stettner recently defended her dissertation, Women and Abortion
in English Canada: Public Debates and Political Participation,
1959-1970, at York University and is under contract to revise the
manuscript for publication (Wilfrid Laurier University Press). The book
explores women’s contributions to the abortion law reform debate of the
decade. She has published in the Canadian Bulletin of Medical History
and is currently editing a volume of abortion narratives and think
pieces entitled Voices on Choice(s): Reflections on Abortion in Canada.
