Call for papers: PAPERS NEEDED ON LESBIAN and GAY ISSUES AND ON
GENDER ISSUES

no papers have been submitted yet on lesbian/gay issues for this
collection


September 1997

CALL FOR PAPERS:         Edited Collection of Articles
                         for Book Publication


Visions of the 21st Century:   Social Research for the Millennium


 As the 21st century approaches, we have decided to edit a book
examining how race, gender, nationalism, sexuality, the family,
ethnicity, work,  education, technology,  community,
globalization,  inequality, politics, and other issues will change
in the next century. We intend for the book to offer a fresh
perspective on all of these issues by not only examining the state
of current events, but by also predicting what changes will occur.
In a larger sense, this book will theorize social change and, we
hope, will offer a new dialogue on the possibilities of
prediction, a topic too long avoided by the social sciences.

 We will also ask authors to not only predict what changes they
believe will occur, but to also describe changes they think should
occur.  Despite the pitfalls involved in prescription, we think it
is time for a reinvigorated role for social scientists as active
contributors to the creation of  more just and humane societies.
This role will be strengthened if we all join the dialogue about
what problems exist in the world, and what solutions we would
offer to solve them; this is a dialogue too important to be left
only to politicians and other conventional policymakers.

To Submit An Article:

 We have initiated a two-step review process. If you are
interested in writing an article for the book, which we are
tentatively titling Visions of the 21st Century:  Social Research
for the Millennium,  please submit a one or two-page abstract of
the article as soon as possible.  Topics can include, but need not
be limited to, those mentioned above. In the abstract please be as
specific as possible about the predictions you make, and also give
some idea of what you think the particular domain of society you
discuss should be like (the prescriptive part of the essay). In
the articles we hope that some, or all, authors will also give
some specific steps to be taken to realize the social ideals which
they articulate.

Publication information: We have been approached by the associate
editor of the New York University Press about our proposal. (She
saw an earlier version of this call for papers on the Internet,
and contacted us about it.) We met with her and she expressed
strong interest in our project. While it is too soon to have a
firm commitment from NYU, we feel optimistic about the prospects
of publication with them.

 About the editors: The editors are Martin Schoenhals, assistant
professor and Chair of anthropology at Dowling College, and Joseph
Behar, professor of sociology at Dowling College. Both authors
have established records of scholarly publication.  Schoenhals'
book, The Paradox of Power in a People's Republic of China Middle
School  (M.E. Sharpe, 1993), discusses the Chinese concept of
face, and the way in which it creates a paradoxical inversion in
the normal relations of power, giving inferiors the power to
evaluate--and criticize--their superiors in schools, the
workplace, and even the political domain. Schoenhals' research has
been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren
Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation. He is currently finishing
a book theorizing race, based on an ethnographic study of the
caste systems of the Yi people, an indigenous ethnic minority in
the mountains of southwest China.  Joseph Behar has just completed
editing a book of sociological studies on cyberspace, Mapping
Cyberspace: Social Research on the Electronic Frontier.   Behar
recently  co-edited a collection of articles on transnationalism
for the Journal for Developing Societies.
 .

Please email your abstract to Martin Schoenhals and to Joe Behar
at MSchoenhal@aol.com and JBehar@igc.apc.org.  Many thanks. We
look forward to hearing from you.