Call for Papers - AALS Section on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Issues
On the Cutting Edge:
Charting the Future of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Scholarship
Thirty years ago, Rhonda Rivera published “Our Straight-Laced Judges: The Legal
Position of Homosexual Persons in the United States,” the first comprehensive law
review article of its kind. Since then, the sexual orientation and gender identity legal
literature has exploded, with hundreds of articles considering all imaginable aspects of
the law’s relationship to gender identity and sexual orientation. At the same time,
political demands of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender have both multiplied
and moved to the center of cultural debates, and the body of case law addressing these
issues has likewise grown exponentially. What, then, are the next steps for legal
scholarship?
The program’s aim is to highlight new issues, new theories, possibilities for linking theory
and practice, and visions of the field for the decade(s) to come.
Because the program aims to spark new ideas, this Call for Papers is for short
essays – from 1000 to 2000 words – rather than for full-length papers. Submissions
will be considered for two purposes:
• Program participation – One submission will be selected for presentation
at the SOGII program at the Annual Meeting, which will be held from
10:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. on Saturday, January 9, 2010, in New Orleans.
The selected author will have to rely on his or her own institution for
funding to attend the conference.
• Publication – Up to twenty submissions will be selected for
publication in a special volume of the Sexuality & Law Journal
(published at Tulane Law School) dedicated to the panel topic.
The SOGII Section executive committee will serve as the selection committee. For both
purposes, essays must be no longer than 2000 words, including footnotes.
The deadline to submit a draft essay is Tuesday, September 1, 2009. Essays can
be revised, subject to the approval of the Journal editors, through the fall semester,
although 2000 words will remain the outer length limit. Please submit the draft paper to
Professor Suzanne B. Goldberg, Chair of the Section on Sexual Orientation and Gender
Identity Issues, as an attachment to an e-mail at suzanne.goldberg@law.columbia.edu.
Submissions will be reviewed by members of the SOGII Section's Executive Committee.
Decisions will be communicated by late September 2009.