>>PUB: hip hop feminism anthology
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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 least two generations of women who identify as Hip Hop
feminist, can we talk about multiple Hip Hop feminism(s), multiple Hip Hop
feminist agendas?
-On that generational note, how then does the Hip Hop feminist agenda mesh
with the Black feminist agenda or womanist agenda of our predecessors and
contemporaries who do not claim a Hip Hop sensibility?
-We know that there are dedicated educators out there who are working in the
trenches with no institutional support to bring feminist education and issues
of sexuality, sexual health, and emotional well-being to our youth, but how
can Hip Hop feminists work to ensure that feminist education is centered in the
curricula of America’s schools, elementary through college for both male and
female students?
-What are the defining contours of Hip Hop Feminism? If we are of the
understanding that a Hip Hop feminist is more than just a woman who loves Hip Hop and
feels conflicted about it, what does a Hip Hop feminism look like?
-The continued sexual labor of women of color in a global market place now
depending on virtual "mass mediated" sex labor (e.g. music video and
pornography) as well as other forms of sex and gendered labor performed by women of color
still policed.
i-s Hip Hop feminism simply a US phenomenon? Should Hip Hop feminism have a
global agenda? And how should Hip Hop feminism participate in the agendas of
transnational feminism(s)?
-What roles can Hip Hop feminism play in combating growing rate of
incarcerated woman of color and the expanding prison industrial complex?

For additional information contact:
Elaine Richardson - <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Please send four copies of the submission by July 30, 2005 to:
Gwendolyn D. Pough
Women’s Studies Program
Syracuse University
208 Bowne Hall
Syracuse, New York 13244


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