Chapter proposals are invited for the edited book “Transgender Literary Theory and Criticism.” We are seeking chapters that show how transgender theory can provide novel insights for developing literary theory and conducting literary criticism, as well as chapters that analyze specific literary works that explore transgender identity and experience from the perspectives of a variety of literary theories. Confirmed contributors include:

I. Theory

• “Cross Pollination: Marcel Proust’s Epistemology of Dysphoria,” Mat Fournier, PhD, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, Ithaca College, USA
• “Dysphoria as Trans Literary Theory: A Trans-/Historical Perspective,” M. W. Bychowski, PhD, Department of English, Case Western Reserve University, USA
• “Transgender Fiction and Trans-Temporal Corporealities,” Karin Sellberg, PhD, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Australia
• “On Paradox as Method for Trans Literary Studies,” Libe García Zarranz, PhD, Department of Teacher Education, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
• “‘Genderfucking’: Creative Writing the Non-Binary Character and Transgender Literary Theory and Criticism,” Nicole Anae, PhD, Department of Literary and Cultural Studies, Central Queensland University, Australia
• “Flesh, Skin, Body: Black Trans Theories for a New Literary Formalism,” Katherine Thorsteinson, PhD, Department of English, St. Thomas University, Canada

II. Criticism

• “Transgressing Gendered Societal Norms: A Transgender Reading of Grendel’s Mother in Beowulf,” Rachel Scoggins, PhD, Department of English, Lander University, USA
• “Transgender Identity in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Twelfth-Century Vita Merlini,” Kristen J. Carella, PhD, Department of English, Assumption University, USA and Kathryn Wymer, PhD, Department of Language and Literature, North Carolina Central University, USA
• “A Transgender Reading of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and Two Chinese Classics — Dream of the Red Chamber (紅樓夢) and The Golden Lotus (金瓶梅): Monstrosity, Artifice, and Cyborgs,” Peter I-min Huang, PhD, Department of English, Tamkang University, Taiwan
• “The Trickster and Transgender Experience: Lasse-Maja’s Autobiography and Nineteenth-Century Trans Literature,” Sam Holmqvist, PhD, Department of Comparative Literature and Gender Studies, Umeå University, Sweden
• “Vernon Lee, a Victorian Non-Binary Perspective,” Nellene Benhardus, PhD, Department of English, University of Iowa, USA
• “‘My Terrain Has Been Forever Changed’: Transgender Identities in Australia as a Challenge to Settler Hegemony,” Nicholas Birns, PhD, School of Professional Studies, New York University, USA
• “Challenging Gender Binaries and Reconstructing Normativity: A Reading of Select Works of South Asian Transgender Authors,” Rubina Iqbal, PhD, Department of English, Aligarh Muslim University, India
• “Paul B. Preciado’s and Iván Monalisa Ojeda’s Performative Transgender Literary Expressions,” Júlia González de Canales Carcereny, PhD, Department of Romance Studies, University of Vienna, Austria
• “Trapped in the Wrong Building: Abject Architecture and Transgender Homelessness in Young Adult Fiction,” Jackson Nash, PhD, School of Media, Film, and Music, University of Sussex, UK
• “‘Daring to Imagine’: Small Beauty as Trans Climate Justice,” Katie Hogan, PhD, Department of English, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA
• “(Re)Defining Trans Futures: Rivers Solomon’s An Unkindness of Ghosts (2017),” Laura-Jane Devanny, PhD, Education Department, University of Northampton, UK

Interested authors should send a 300-word abstract, 200-word biography, and sample of a previously published chapter or article to Dr. Douglas Vakoch at dvakoch@ciis.edu by July 25, 2020. Authors will be notified whether their proposals are accepted by July 30, 2020. First drafts of full chapters are due by November 1, 2020, and final versions are due January 15, 2021. Both transgender and cisgender contributors are welcome. Preference will be given to authors who have completed their doctorates. Only previously unpublished works will be considered. We seek a broadly international group of scholarly contributors.

Chapters may draw on transgender theory and/or one or more traditional schools of literary theory, including but not limited to queer theory, critical theory, feminism, psychoanalysis, cultural materialism, poststructuralism, contextualism, postmodernism, postcolonialism, posthumanism, transhumanism, transfeminism, ecocriticism, and queer ecologies. Chapters that develop original transgender literary theories are especially welcome. Proposals to write the introduction to the book are also encouraged.

This volume is modeled after Dr. Vakoch’s latest book “Transecology: Transgender Perspectives on Environment and Nature” (2020). Contributors to that book used major concepts from gender studies and ecology to examine intimacy, connection, exclusion, identity, and emplacement. For example, these chapters examined Susan Stryker’s notion of trans identity as ‘ontologically inescapable,’ Stacy Alaimo’s notion of ‘trans-corporeality’ as a ‘contact zone’ between humans and the environment, Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands and Bruce Erickson’s history of the development of queer rural spaces, Judith Butler’s analysis of gender as ‘performative,’ with those who are not ‘properly gendered’ being seen as ‘abjects’—and Julia Serano’s contrasting rejection of gender as performance.

Dr. Vakoch’s previous books include “Literature and Ecofeminism: Intersectional and International Voices” (2018) and “Feminist Ecocriticism: Environment, Women, and Literature” (2012). He serves as editor of Ecocritical Theory and Practice, published by Lexington Books, an imprint of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group.