Synoptique is inviting submissions for an upcoming special issue
entitled “Porn and Its Uses.” Responding to the genre’s marginal status in the
academy and beyond, this special issue seeks to explore how pornography can be
(re)framed as useful—pedagogically, politically, aesthetically, and
libidinally. Broadly framed, this may refer to pornography as both a difficult
object of interest and as a method for critically analyzing the most pressing
questions in our current moment.
Pioneering explorations of the genre within academia have treated
pornography as a vibrant cinematic institution (Lesage, “Women and
Pornography,” 1981), an oppositional grass-roots practice (Waugh, “Men’s
Pornography, Gay vs. Straight,” 1985) and an instrument to gauge the
organization of pleasure and control (Linda Williams, Hard Core, 1989). In
1996, an issue of Jump Cut dedicated a special section to the study of
pornography. This seminal publication, edited by Chuck Kleinhans, curated
articles, conference reports and even a sample syllabus in order to reframe the
genre as a tool for analyzing issues of censorship, national cultures, gender
and race. This issue of Synoptique seeks to recapture that intellectual impulse
in the wake of recent academic forays that have placed pornography in the
context of labour (Heather Berg), affect (Susanna Paasonen) and critical race
studies (Mireille Miller-Young), among others.
The theme of this special issue cheekily gestures towards the
serviceability of the genre beyond (but certainly not excluding) the happy
ending broadly associated with porn. The titular “uses” of pornography expand
on a key intervention from Haidee Wasson and Charles Acland’s introduction
to Useful Cinema to ask how porn, broadly defined, maintains the “ability to
transform unlikely spaces, convey ideas, convince individuals, and produce
subjects in the service of public and private aims” (Acland and Wasson 2011, 2).
As porn studies proliferates across numerous monographs and edited collections,
university curricula, international conferences, podcasts, a dedicated
scholarly journal and more, we are interested in porn’s usefulness while at the
same time complicating and questioning the impetus to instrumentalize
knowledge. How do we continue to shape a field that embraces knowledge
traditionally deemed intellectually and morally suspect while responding to the
porn industry’s political and economic stakes?
Under this broad inquiry, and abiding by the journal’s mandate to
challenge traditional paradigms in media scholarship and publication, we are
inviting scholars and practitioners alike to submit academic and creative
pieces that testify to porn’s usefulness. In order for the journal to include
the widest spectrum of voices possible, including those implicated in the
industry, the editorial team will, under request, publish material anonymously
or pseudonymously.
We are inviting submissions from scholars of all disciplines, on topics
such as (but not limited to):
pornography as visual, textual, and auditory genres historical approaches to pornography
- porn studies as academic field: methods, frameworks, ethics
- porn and/as pedagogy, in and out of the classroom
- porn studies and postcolonial and/or critical race theory
- porn as site of feminist, queer and trans interventions
- archives and material cultures of pornography
- pornification and the mainstreaming of pornography
- porn in the context of celebrity studies
- pornography’s audiences and fan cultures
- pornography's digital cultures and economies
- porn and sex work in legislative contexts
- anti-pornography discourses
Essays submitted for peer review should be approximately 5,500-7,500
words and must conform to the Chicago author-date style (17th ed.). All images
must be accompanied by photo credits and captions.
We also warmly invite submissions to the review section, including
conference or exhibition reports, book reviews, film festival reports, thought
pieces and interviews related to the aforementioned topics. All non-peer
reviewed articles should be a maximum of 2,500 words and include a bibliography
following Chicago author-date style (17th ed.).
Creative works and interventions in the forms of digital video, still
imagery, creative writing, and other multimedia forms are also welcome. These
works will be hosted or embedded on the Synoptique website, and/or otherwise
linked to in the PDF version of the journal. Please do not hesitate to contact
us should you have any questions regarding your submission ideas for the
non-peer reviewed section.
All submissions may be written in either French or English.
Please submit completed essays or reports to the Editorial Collective
(editor.synoptique@gmail.com) and the issue guest editors Rebecca Holt
(reba.s.holt@gmail.com), Darshana Sreedhar Mini (mini@usc.edu), and Nikola
Stepić (nikola.stepic@concordia.ca) by April 30th. We will send notifications
of acceptance by May 31st.
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