Call for Submissions – Succession III: Queering the Environment – Rebellion

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Succession II: Queering the Environment – Rebellion

A NiCHE Series

Proposal Deadline: April 5, 2024

Series Publication: June 2024

Series Editors: Jessica DeWitt, Estraven Lupino-Smith, and Addie Hopes

In ecology, succession is a series of progressive changes made in a community over time. These changes often lead to higher diversity in an environment.

In June 2020, we published the first Succession: Queering the Environment series that explored the changes that occur within environmental history and related environmental studies when queer people, non-humans, systems, and ideas are centred. And in June 2022, we published Succession II, which explored unruliness, care, and pleasure.

Join us for the third installment of this now biennial series for a deeper dive into unruliness, Succession III – Rebellion.

Every year as we approach Pride month this June, the internet buzzes with stories like this recent gem: just a few weeks ago, onlookers captured the first (known) photograph of humpback whales having sex. To their surprise, the frolicking leviathans were both male. The humpbacks join gay penguins, bi chimps, polyamorous gulls, and a litany of non-humans enjoying same-sex trysts, all reminding audiences that nonhumans don’t play by the rules of heteronormativity, homophobia, or binary categorizations of “sex” and “gender.”

From clownfish that change their sexual organs to pregnant male seahorses to the 1500 animal species that partake in same-sex behaviors, nature is inherently queer – and queerness is as natural as it gets. With anti-LGBTQIA2S+ protests on the rise in North America and epidemic levels of violence against trans youth and two spirit peoples still raging on, stories that insist on the normalness of sexual fluidity and the undeniable everyday queerness of ecosystems are not only fun but also integral to the project of queer ecology and the ongoing fight for justice.

For queer theorists, queerness is about more than sex and gender. Queerness challenges normativity itself. It disrupts cis-heteronormative expectations (yes: male whales get it on!) but it also resists the structures of the settler nation-state and the systems of white supremacy, transmisogyny, capitalism, policing and incarceration that sustain it. Seen in this way, the orcas who spent their summer sinking yachts are queer, too.

For this series, we invite submissions that take up ideas of queer rebellion as interruption and resistance.

We seek proposals for Succession III that:

  • Respond to the concept of rebellion
  • Feature LGBTQIA2S+ folks interacting with and thinking about the environment and non-human animals in the past and present.
  • Reimagine environmental topics using queer theory or a related queer lens.
  • Are in written in English or French.

Succession III will feature:

  • Environmental History
  • Environmental Humanities
  • Environmental Art
  • Queer Ecology
  • Related Disciplines

Succession III submissions can take the form of:

  • Blog posts (800-1200 words)
  • Creative Fiction or Non-Fiction
  • Poetry
  • Art
  • Photo Essays
  • Audio and Visual Projects
  • Other forms of expression and writing

Submit a 100-300 word proposal describing your proposed submission, how it incorporates or relates to rebellion, and its contribution to the field of environmental history/studies more broadly, as well as a short bio using the Google Form below by April 5, 2024.

Applicants will alerted of their submission status by April 12, 2024. Please email Jessica DeWitt, jessicamariedewitt [at] gmail.com, with any questions or other inquiries.

NiCHE offers $100 CAD honoraria to contributors without adequate or consistent access to institutional support. Learn more about our honoraria policy here.

Feature Image: “Assuming the Ecosexual Position by Beth Stephens & Annie Sprinkle” by NEoN Digital Arts (SCIO) is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
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Jessica DeWitt

is an environmental historian of Canada and the United States, editor, project manager, and digital communications strategist. She earned her PhD in History from the University of Saskatchewan in 2019. She is an executive member, editor-in-chief, and social media editor for the Network in Canadian History and Environment (NiCHE). She is the Managing Editor for the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines. She is also President of the Saskatchewan History and Folklore Society, a Girls Rock Saskatoon board member, and a Coordinating Team member of Showing Up for Racial Justice Saskatoon-Treaty Six. A passionate social justice advocate, she focuses on developing digital techniques and communications that bridge the divide between academia and the general public in order to democratize knowledge access. You can find out more about her and her freelance services at jessicamdewitt.com.

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