Call for Contributions to the Spring 2017 Issue of exCommunicated

Issue Theme: “Women and Heresy”

Deadline: May 1

exCommunicated, the publication of the International Society for Heresy Studies, is looking for contributions from writers and academics on the subjects of heresy, blasphemy, and non-belief. An international, interdisciplinary, and non-sectarian academic organization, the ISHS is committed to investigating the subject of heresy as broadly defined, across disciplines including history, literature, religious studies, theology, sociology, anthropology, art history, gender studies, cultural studies, area studies, and other subjects. Since the organization’s founding in 2014, it has held two successful international conferences and  released five issues of exCommunicated. Our publication aims to be engrossing, provocative, analytical, and creative.  We welcome a wide range of contributions (up to 1,500 words) that address matters of heresy, blasphemy, and non-belief, religious or otherwise, past or present, including reflections on news and current events; reports on conferences, conventions, protests, and other events; topical historical commentary; timely analysis of social, cultural, political, or legal systems that support (or resist) orthodoxy; book, movie, and television reviews; and pedagogical accounts of addressing the subjects of heresy, blasphemy, and non-belief in the classroom.

For the Spring 2017 issue of exCommunicated, we are moving to a new format: contributions will be published as open-access posts on the society website, rather than as part of a single downloadable file. In moving to this new format, we aim to encourage the sharing and circulation of our authors’ contributions, furthering our commitment to bringing thoughtful, academic approaches to the subjects of heresy, blasphemy, and non-belief to a broad, intellectually engaged general audience. At the same time, we wish to advance the scholarly aims of exCommunicated by publishing one or two short (3,000-4,000 word) peer-reviewed essays alongside the other contributions. For all contributions, including peer-reviewed essays, we encourage a prose style that is in keeping with the idea of the “public humanities,” accessible to academic and non-academic audiences alike.

We strive to publish authors with varied perspectives and diverse backgrounds. To that end, the theme of the Spring 2017 issue of exCommunicated is “Women and Heresy,” and we particularly invite contributions from women writers and academics. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Heretical female historical figures
• Heretical or non-believing movements begun by or associated with women
• The concept of “woman” as a heresy
• Feminism as cultural/political heresy
• “Heresies” within the modern feminist movement
• Gender fluid/transgender identities as social heresy
• Feminism’s current or historical relationship with religious belief/non-belief
• The portrayal of women and religiosity in the media and popular culture
• Current or historical representations of the divine as female/feminine
• Women and heretical politics in the 2016 US election and the Trump presidency

Please send queries and submissions to Bernard Schweizer (Long Island University) at .