Aims and Scope
Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory publishes scholarly essays from interdisciplinary feminist perspectives. For us, “women” and “performance” denote not simply what we study but how we study it—that is, not preconceived objects of analysis, but rather an open assembly of political, ethical, and aesthetic orientations, feminism chief among them. We encourage dialogues among various fields of performance scholarship, including theater and performance studies, dance studies, music history and criticism, ethnography, new and digital media, cinema studies, and cultural studies; as well as queer, critical race, and post- and decolonial theory. Working with/in this disciplinary hybridity, we explore critiques of gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, dis/ability, technology, nation, and capitalism.
The journal is a peer-reviewed, triannual publication with guest-edited special issues. We encourage general submissions that foreground questions of gender and performance, as well as proposals for special issues that address specific topics within feminism and performance studies. Included in our journal is a section titled “&,” which features performative writing, poetry, artist’s statements, manifestos, feminist and queer takes on current events, and other modes of intellectual production and critical engagement that perform feminist theory in alternative forms. The journal also includes reviews of recent performances and scholarly books.
About Us
Women & Performance was founded in 1983 by graduate students in the Department of Performance Studies at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. After self-publishing for 23 years, Women & Performance was acquired by Routledge/Taylor & Francis. Since its inception the journal has operated as a feminist collective. For us, being a feminist collective entails a fair and ethical distribution of labor, a nonhierarchical and collaborative editorial structure, and a review process that hopes to diverge from what is extractive and transactional in traditional academic publishing.
