Our aim for this special issue proposal is to explore the importance of rethinking feminist politics and feminist theory from a lesbian perspective. While lesbian politics and experiences are often erased or euphemized in the history of feminism, we argue that this absence can be considered an instance of feminist “haunting,” which Avery Gordon has characterized as the “something-to-be-done”: an unresolved feminist contradiction which has not only impacted the way feminist theory is framed but also how feminist stories have been and are being told. However, as Gordon has noted, “the ghost demands your attention” (Gordon 2011, p. 3). We will be asking in this special issue: What happens when lesbian haunting is taken seriously as a starting point in feminist theory and histories of social movements? What changes (or stays the same) when we foreground lesbian theories within variously located histories of feminism, and what changes (or remains) within lesbian theory as well when we de-centre its Anglophone canon? What challenges does the (re)centring of lesbian traditions propose to the histories we tell, our canons of thought, or the dominance of certain theoretical strands, as well as what we think of as feminism?

We invite contributions that foreground the significance of starting from lesbian politics and/or theory in relationship to any strands of feminist or queer theory, local or transnational, with a view to telling different stories or elaborating new modes of articulation.

We welcome abstracts from a wide range of disciplines. Abstracts should be up to 250 words long. Please include your name, title, and any institutional affiliation.

Deadline for submission of abstracts: Monday May 22nd 2017