Special Guest Edited Issue of Taboo: The Journal of Culture & Education; due 9/30/16 Special Issue on Lemonade: Black Womanhood, Identity & Sexuality Guest Editors: Venus Evans-Winters, PhD Illinois State University Jennifer Esposito, PhD Georgia State University

 Special Guest Edited Issue of Taboo: The Journal of Culture &
Education; due 9/30/16

Special Issue on Lemonade: Black Womanhood, Identity & Sexuality

Guest Editors:
Venus Evans-Winters, PhD
Illinois State University

Jennifer Esposito, PhD
Georgia State University

We invite contributions to this special invitation issue of Taboo that
will interrogate the various messages embedded in Beyonce’s new visual
album, Lemonade. For this special edition, we are seeking theoretical,
conceptual, research, and/or practical issues specifically related to
the social construction of Black womanhood, identity, and sexuality in
media. With the growth of social media, images and sounds of Black
women and girls are more widely circulated, interpreted, and critiqued
by cultural critics, laypersons and academicians alike. With the call
to give more attention to the need for critical media literacy
(Kellner & Share, 2006; Alvermann & Hagood, 2000), there is an urgent
need to include discussions of Black women’s everyday lived realities
and messages into these conversations. Collectively, critical race and
feminist scholars are reimagining and theorizing the role of popular
culture in co-constructing girls’ and women’s lives within the popular
imagination. For this special issue call, we are interested in
articles that address audiences’ reaction to the Lemonade album and
various discussions centered on Beyonce and feminism (e.g. bell hooks
public response). Interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary frameworks are
especially welcomed. All submissions are APA citation style.

This special issue invites articles that critically explore, but are
not limited to, the following themes:
• Intersectionality and critical media literacy
• Performances of feminism
• Critical media literacy in educational and political reform
• The influence of popular culture on the identities of Black girls
and young women
• The role of popular culture in shaping society’s perceptions of
Black girls and women
• Culture and knowledge formation
• Black womanhood and political identity
• Black girlhood and cultural identity
• Teaching and learning in the age of hypermedia
• Black sexuality in the age of hypermedia and social media
• Social movements like Black Lives Matters/Black Girls Matter and media
• Cultural Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Women and Gender Studies
• Critical theories and frameworks in the analysis of media

Submission and Timeline
Submit your full-length manuscript by September 30, 2016. All
correspondence, inquiries, and manuscripts should be emailed to Dr.
Venus Evans-Winters (vevansw@ilstu.edu), Dr. Jennifer Esposito
(jesposito@gsu.edu), and the editors of Taboo
(tabooeditors@gmail.com). The subject line of your email should read
Lemonade: Black Womanhood, Identity & Sexuality

* December 15, 2016 - Authors will receive notification about
manuscripts acceptance with feedback from reviewers
* January 15, 2017 - Revised manuscripts will be returned to editors
* February 15, 2017 - Final manuscripts due
* March 15, 2017 - Editor finalizes special issue for submission to the journal

References
Kellner, D. & Share, J. (2006). Critical media literacy is not an
option. Learning Inquiry. 1 (1), 59-69.
Alvermann, D. E., & Hagood, M. C. (2000). Critical media literacy:
Research, theory, and practice in “New Times”. The Journal of
educational research, 93(3), 193-205.