Application Deadline
August 1, 2026
Institution or Organization
Palgrave Macmillan
Location
Website
Salary or Compensation
none
Description and Requirements
Dear Colleagues,
Are you wondering about the possibility of transnational solidarity beyond material and discursive borders in an increasingly fragmented and polarized world, where local problems often seem disconnected from one another and even more disarticulated from the dialectics of global politics and resistance? You are not alone.
Join us in this project as we think through some of the most pressing issues of our time, in a world where the most marginalized are often abandoned to fend for themselves and their pain is met with doubt, indifference, and disavowal. Together, let us explore the possibilities of collective political consciousness through collective scholarship.
We are excited to share this call-for-chapters for a peer-reviewed anthology that Palgrave Macmillan is interested in publishing. The editors are Prof. Roksana Alavi, Dr. Ladan Zarabadi and myself.
A PDF of call for chapters is attached. Please share wide and far.
The Uncanny of Woman, Life, Freedom: Local Struggles and Transnational Resonance
You are invited to submit abstracts for a chapter in an upcoming edited collection focused on reimagining transnational resistance and solidarity through the Woman, Life, Freedom (WLF) movement. This volume aims to explore the historical formations, local meanings, and transnational implications of the WLF movement as an ongoing feminist struggle that has profoundly disrupted theocratic patriarchy, public culture, and gender norms in Iran, while generating tangible reverberations worldwide. Palgrave Macmillan has expressed interest in publishing this collection, pending peer-review.
This volume began with the following question: What is transnational praxis in a chaotic and fragmented world characterized by blatant despotism, mass atrocities, and the suppression of dissent operating alongside creative modes of resistance? Can transnational movements for equality, freedom, and democracy be mobilized across national borders, linking grassroots activism to global analysis, and translated into diverse contexts while reinforcing, transforming, or even undermining one another?
Full chapters should be between 6,000 and 7,000 words, including references and notes, and must consist of original work that has not been previously published elsewhere. If you are interested in contributing to this volume, please complete the submission form by August 1, 2026. For inquiries about the volume, please contact the co-editors, Drs. Roksana Alavi, Sona Kazemi, and Ladan Zarabadi, at wlfanthology@gmail.com. An official call for chapters can be found here.
in solidarity,
Sona Kazemi
Woman. Life. Freedom
….زن. زندگی. آزادی…
Application Instructions and Contact
Call for Book Chapters
The Uncanny of Woman, Life, Freedom: Local Struggles and Transnational Resonance
You are invited to submit abstracts for a chapter in an upcoming edited collection focused on reimagining transnational resistance and solidarity through the Woman, Life, Freedom (WLF) movement. This volume aims to explore the historical formations, local meanings, and transnational implications of the WLF movement as an ongoing feminist struggle that has profoundly disrupted theocratic patriarchy, public culture, and gender norms in Iran, while generating tangible reverberations worldwide. Palgrave Macmillan has expressed interest in publishing this collection, pending peer-review.
This volume began with the following question: What is transnational praxis in a chaotic and fragmented world characterized by blatant despotism, mass atrocities, and the suppression of dissent operating alongside creative modes of resistance? Can transnational movements for equality, freedom, and democracy be mobilized across national borders, linking grassroots activism to global analysis, and translated into diverse contexts while reinforcing, transforming, or even undermining one another?
Since its emergence in 2022, the WLF movement has posed one of the most significant ideological challenges to the Islamic Republic’s totalitarian and misogynistic rule in Iran. In both public and intimate spheres of personal and social life, women and queer people across the country have courageously and relentlessly challenged and transformed gender norms protected and reinforced by the Islamic state. These challenges have been culturally transformative in unexpected and sometimes contradictory ways, shaping modes of feminist resistance, solidarity, and political imagination across diverse local, regional, and global contexts.
We seek contributions that:
- Examine, historicize, and politicize the WLF movement as both a local cultural revolution and a global political reawakening;
- Theorize and/or apply WLF as an epistemological, methodological, or theoretical framework for analyzing transnational contexts and tracing its circulation, reception, and mis/translation across diverse publics;
- Draw on local politics in non-Western contexts, community-based activism, artistic and embodied practices, and approaches that challenge disciplinary boundaries, academic conventions, and epistemic hegemonies.
Through this volume, we aim to challenge and resist epistemic coercion, disrupt disciplinary boundaries, and unsettle naturalized assumptions surrounding secular feminist politics in the Middle East and beyond, emancipatory social struggles in non-Western contexts, and dominant approaches to international relations. In doing so, we hope to cultivate possibilities for imagining futures in which freedom, democracy, and liberation are conceived and enacted in diverse, creative, and transnational ways.
Potential Themes and Topics
Potential themes and topics include, but are not limited to:
- Secular feminism
- Re-theorizing the veil as an ideological instrument of the state and a mechanism of gender apartheid
- Examining tensions between anti-imperialist politics and gender justice in Muslim-majority contexts
- Analyses of concerns surrounding the reproduction of anti-Muslim sentiments and Orientalist narratives in Western contexts
- The role of art in shaping feminist resistance and challenging hegemonic power structures
- Challenging Western exceptionalism and exploring “multiple empire” tools (Li et al., 2025), theories, and methods to rethink possibilities for transnational “solidarity over critique” (Atshan, 2020)
- Placing WLF in conversation with feminist, queer, anti-authoritarian, decolonial, and emancipatory struggles across different regional and historical contexts
- Examining how WLF resonates with, differs from, negates, or reshapes feminist and queer struggles elsewhere
- State formation and polity in Iran
- Iran’s imperialism in the Middle East through the so-called “Axis of Resistance”
- Statehood and Modernity in Iran
- Transnational feminist politics and inter-contextual tensions
- Queer resistance and bodily politics
- Transnational solidarity (or the lack thereof)
- Disability and dissent
- Diasporic activism and digital dissent
- Gen Z, children, and dissent
- Artistic and embodied forms of resistance
Full chapters should be between 6,000 and 7,000 words, including references and notes, and must consist of original work that has not been previously published elsewhere.
Tentative Timeline
- Abstract Deadline: August 1, 2026
- Acceptance Notifications: September 15, 2026
- First Drafts Due: March 1, 2027
- Editorial Responses to Authors: May 30, 2027
- Final Submission Deadline (Post-Revisions): July 30, 2027
Abstracts should include a clear theoretical framework and methodology while situating the analysis within relevant scholarly conversations. We particularly encourage submissions that critically engage existing literature while offering innovative conceptual, methodological, empirical, artistic, or political interventions. If you are interested in contributing to this volume, please complete the submission form by August 1, 2026. When submitting your abstract (250 to 300 words), please also include:
- A short bio (maximum 250 words)
- A list of references (maximum 15 sources)
Please note that full chapters will undergo editorial review and selection for inclusion in the volume. Acceptance of an abstract does not guarantee acceptance of the full chapter.
For inquiries about the volume, please contact the co-editors, Drs. Roksana Alavi, Sona Kazemi, and Ladan Zarabadi, at wlfanthology@gmail.com.