How do we historicize the production, consumption and circulation of sexual images and texts?

Notches: (re)marks on the history of sexuality is seeking short essays (1000 – 1500 words) exploring any aspect of histories of sexual media such as erotic literature and art, film and print pornography, records, video games, and “mainstream” cultural productions. We encourage submissions from outside North America and from prior to the twentieth century, submissions that explore the history of sexual representations across region, and pieces exploring recent shifts that explain how we arrived at the present.

We welcome blog posts; interviews with scholars, archivists, activists, performers, as well as submissions to our “Archives of Desire” series in which historians reflect on specific primary sources and their value in researching or teaching histories of sexuality.

Page from "Snow White and the 7 Dwarves," a Tijuana Bible. Tijuana Bibles were pornographic comic books reaching peak popularity during the Depression Era in the United States. They often parodied famous cartoon characters.
“Snow White and the 7 Dwarves,” Tijuana Bible. Tijuana Bibles were pornographic comic books popular in the United States during the 1930s.

Possible topics for historical exploration include but are not limited to:

  • Histories of “pornography” as category, genre and/or industry
  • Sexual representation and technological change (e.g. changes in paper or a/v technology)
  • Pornography and book culture
  • Sexuality, archaeology, and material culture
  • Regulation and censorship
  • Feminist and queer porn industries
  • Erotic representations and community formation
  • Pornography and the politics of memory
  • Porn in the archives / the politics of collection, preservation and curation
  • Stars, fans, and consumer culture

Style and image guidelines:

  • Submissions should be written for a non-specialist and international audience. Therefore, avoid jargon and use hyperlinks wherever possible to clarify terms or concepts that may be unfamiliar to a general readership.
  • Include at least one relevant image for which you have obtained permission and caption your image with clear attribution information. We also welcome your use of a range of sources such as movies or sound files.
  • Include a short author bio including hyperlinks with your submission.

Proposals and queries are most welcome. Send submissions to notchesblog@gmail.com by March 30, 2017. All submissions to NOTCHES will go through an internal peer review process prior to publication.



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NOTCHES: (re)marks on the history of sexuality is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at www.notchesblog.com.

For permission to publish any NOTCHES post in whole or in part please contact the editors at NotchesBlog@gmail.com

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