CFP: “Porn on the Move” Porn Studies Journal

submission deadline: March 22nd 2015

Details Below:
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Porn on the Move”

Porn Studies Journal Forum Section CFP

Pornography is the most transient of all media texts. Attempts to situate pornography within the realm of the private, because of increased internet accessibility coupled with the destruction of many metropolitan porn theaters, fail to recognize the porn text’s insistent ability to seamlessly shift between private and public viewing spaces. For instance, not only is porn accessible through any internet enabled wireless device, but porn consumers are now also producing vast amounts of their own amateur porn content and distributing it through these same devices. The notion of passive porn consumption is a construct of the past, because we can now see how engagements with porn texts through social networking are an active/integral part of one’s online and personal identity formation (like when users exchange nude imagery of themselves through hook-up apps like Grindr or Tinder, or engage with professional porn performers on Twitter). This is why it is essential that we begin to comprehensively track porn’s movement through our ever expanding mediascape; which now includes social media, smartphone apps, the popularization of amateur porn, porn film festivals, as well as, new viewing technologies. Because of these changes, porn is no longer a “stationary” stand alone text, and as a result, is increasingly becoming hard to pin down as a singular object of study. Rather, porn must be thought of as moving through a wide ranging cultural assemblage.

More specifically, we must work on analyzing this movement through what Susanna Paasonen calls, a “pornographic assemblage.” She describes it as a “complex nexus of flesh, generic conventions, technologies, regulatory acts and values…in and through which particular images and texts become experienced and defined as pornographic” (3). This idea of an assemblage emphasizes context over content, and underscores the porn text’s ability to traverse a multitude of different technological, social, and theoretical environments. This forum’s aim is to collect work which addresses these pluralities. We are interested in the historical, theoretical and literal movement of porn. Some examples might include:

* Blurring the line between professional and amateur

* Porn watched and consumed in private versus public

* Technological shifts which facilitate and accelerate movement

* Theoretical shifts within the discipline

* Exchanging and creating porn within social circles and social media.

* The rise and popularity of porn film festivals, and their ability to travel around the world.

* Reappropriation of porn texts.

* Communities, affect and porn.

* Historical and aesthetic shifts.

* Porn and sexual politics.

Completed forum entries of no more than 1,500 words are to be sent to Brandon Arroyo at arroyo.brandon@gmail.com by March 22, 2015. If you have any questions about the entries or would like to make a proposal before sending in a completed entry please feel free to do so. Thanks in advance for contributing to what should be a very stimulating project.