Literacies and the Body: Theories and Research on Teaching, Learning, and Embodiment Call for Chapter Proposals

We invite chapter proposals for an edited book on literacies and embodiment. For this book, we seek to curate a set of manuscripts that expands definitions of literate practice through the use of critical, feminist, post-structural and other theories of embodiment surrounding literacy practices. Theories of embodiment emphasize the psychosocial, lived, affective, multimodal, and performative dimensions of communication and thus literacy. Simply put, we aim to center the role that feelings, gestures, and more taboo or less visible communications expressed through the body (e.g., dress and silence) play in literacy teaching and learning. Such theories and embodied practices are absent from relentlessly constrained, text- and skills-centered conceptions of literacy, and yet they reveal much about how students make meaning of and negotiate their literate terrains as they engage with people, texts, and ideas in particular sociopolitical and cultural contexts. This book will thus contribute to scholarly work that has proliferated over the past few years and explores how embodiment helps re-imagine literacy and learning, matters that are particularly important in this era of confinement and standardization. As a collective, our own research, publications, and inter/national presentations center work at the intersection of theories of literacy and embodiment, from Bourdieus (1984, 1990, 1994, 2000; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992) habitus and Judith Butlers (1990, 1997, 1999) performance theories to Walkerdines (1990; Walkerdine, Lucey & Melody, 2001) psychosocial theories of identity. Chapter proposals may take up these approaches; yet, and most importantly, they may suggest diverse ways of understanding the embodiment of literacy by drawing on other theories that explore the link between literacies and bodies. Further, we seek chapter proposals that consider these issues within a multiplicity of education spaces and literacy practices, inviting contributors to engage with the fullness and complexity of embodied literacy performances inside and outside institutional contexts. The book is intended to constitute a resource for scholars, researchers, educators, and graduate students who are interested in understanding the complexities of literacy and literacy learning as social, affective, and/or political acts. Proposed chapters might be reports of original research studies, essays concerning theoretical and/or methodological issues related to literacies and embodiment, or comprehensive syntheses of literature and research. Manuscripts that experiment with content and form are welcome but not required. Proposals should: be no more than 1000 words in length. Suggested sections may include the following: the purpose, theoretical perspectives, modes of inquiry/methodology and data sources, major findings, and conclusions. Alternative forms and structures are also welcome. include a cover page listing the chapter title, as well as the name, institutional affiliation, mailing address, email address, and phone number of all chapter authors include an updated CV listing representative works be formatted as PDF documents be submitted to Grace Enriquez (genrique@lesley.edu) or Elisabeth Johnson (elisabeth.johnson@gmail.com) by July 31, 2013.

Authors will be notified of acceptance around the third week of August. Questions should be directed to Grace Enriquez (genrique@lesley.edu) or Elisabeth Johnson (elisabeth.johnson@gmail.com). Editorial Team: Grace Enriquez, Lesley University Elisabeth Johnson, City University of New York, College of Staten Island Stavroula Kontovourki, University of Cyprus Christine Mallozzi, University of Kentucky