CFP: Collection on Shulasmith Firestone's THE DIALECTIC OF SEX: THE CASE FOR REVOLUTION.

2010 will mark the fortieth anniversary of the most radical manifesto of contemporary feminism. Firestone's The Dialectic of Sex: the Case for Feminist Revolution became a bestseller, yet unlike the other celebrated feminist polemics of that year (Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch and Kate Millett's Sexual Politics), Firestone's work is scarcely remembered today. Firestone called not only for the abolition of the nuclear family and the economic and social independence of children, but for the end of pregnancy itself. The cybernetic revolution was hailed as the technological solution to the curse of Eve and the subordination of mothers just as automation was claimed to offer an end to brutal physical labour. Today, as researchers attempt to devise a prosthetic womb, Firestone's call seems prescient. More importantly, her philosophical challenge to the cultural significance of genital difference returns us to the unresolved question of gender dichotomy, whether this is understood as discursive, social, psychological or physical, and its relation to the continuing subordination of women and homosexuals. We are requesting papers of 7,000 to 9,000 words addressing The Dialectic of Sex, its argument, its reception, its salience today. Please send 300 word synopses, together with a briefbiography, to Mandy Merck and Stella Sandford at m.merck@hul.ac.uk by April 1, 2008.