Editorial

Welcome to Volume 37.1 of Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture and Social Justice!
This issue consists of three clusters. The first thematic cluster, edited and introduced by Suzanne Lenon (Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Lethbridge), Susanne Luhmann (Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Alberta), and Nathan Rambukkana (Communications Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University), focuses on the theme of Intimacies/Affect. The three articles featured in the cluster include: Caitlin Gladney-Hatcher, “Under the Fantasy of Sovereignty: Homonormativity, Relationality, and the Potentialities of Queer Sex”; Naomi de Szegheo-Lang, “Non-Sexual Spooning and Inanimate Affections: Diversifying Intimate Knowledge”; and Natalie Kouri-Towe, “Textured Activism: Affect Theory and Transformational Politics in Transnational Queer Palestine-Solidarity Activism.”
The second cluster, edited and introduced by Jennifer L. Johnson (Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Thorneloe University) and Laura Parisi (Women’s Studies, University of Victoria), features five articles that focus on the theme of Transgressing Borders/Boundaries: Gendering Space and Place. These include: Karen Keddy, “‘Safety is just a thing men take for granted’: Teaching a Spatial Vocabulary of Equality to Architecture Students”; Albert Casals and Joanna Riera, “‘We Are Gunslinging Girls’: Gender and Place in Playground Clapping Games”; Mark Anthony Castrodale and Laura Lane, “Finding One’s Place to Be and Pee: Examining Intersections of Gender-Dis/ability in Washroom Signage”; Mehra Shirazi, Patti Duncan, and Kryn Freehling-Burton, “Gender, Nation, and Belonging: Representing Mothers and the Maternal in Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation”; and Sarah Olutola, “Liberal Spaces: The Costs and Contradictions of Reproducing Hegemonic National Subjects in Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet and Brokeback Mountain.”
The third cluster includes a series of open topic articles that cover a broad spectrum of themes and issues. The first two articles take readers into the world

of media representations. Corinne Mason’s article, “The ‘Kingston Mills Murder’ and the Construction of ‘Honour Killings’ in Canadian News Media,” examines the print media coverage of the murder of four members of the Shafia family near Kington, Ontario in 2009. She demonstrates how journalists as well as feminist and “gender experts” constructed the case in cultural terms —as “honour killings” and as a consequence of a “clash of civilizations.” Drawing on the work of Sherene Razack, Chandra T. Mohanty, Inderpal Grewal, and others, she goes on to map an alternative feminist response to the “honour killings” narrative. In “The Challenge of Sustaining Critique across Time and Texts: ‘I never said that’ about The Hunger Games,” Laura Lane, Nancy Taber, and Vera Woloshyn explore how and why a group of preadolescent girls (grades 5-7) responded differently to the gender representations featured in The Hunger Games novel and in the subsequent film adaptation. Based on their critical reading of novel-to-film adaptations and what unfolded in their group and individual conversations with the young girls, the authors conclude that it is critically important that all learners are provided “with spaces for critical discussion of popular culture texts.”
The following three articles explore themes related to women’s identities and lives, as well as one state initiative designed to combat gender-based violence. In “’Haram, she’s obese!’: Young Lebanese-Canadian Women’s Discursive Constructions of ‘Obesity’,” Zeina Abou-Rizk and Geneviève Rail examine twenty young Lebanese-Canadian women’s understandings of “obesity” and how their conceptions, with few exceptions, tended to appropriate and reproduce the “dominant obesity discourse.” By drawing on feminist postcolonial theory, the authors also explore the ways in which the young women’s perceptions of body size were connected to their multiple positions as diasporic subjects, particularly in relation to “Canadian-ness,” “Lebanese Canadian-ness,” and “Lebanese-ness.” Cheryl van Daalen-Smith, Brad Hagan, and Peter Breggin, in their

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article, “Diminished: Canadian Women’s Experiences of Electroshock,” examine the stories of seven Canadian women who underwent electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) over the last forty years, with a particular focus on “the trajectory of their lives prior to, during, and after ECT” and how their lives were “diminished” as a result of undergoing these treatments. Given that the administration of ECT is increasing, especially among women and the elderly, the authors’ main purpose in presenting the women’s narratives is to “re-ignite feminist interest in women’s experiences of psychiatry in general and the damaging effects of electroshock in particular.” Susan M. Manning, in “The Potential of Government Intervention in Violence Against Women: Lessons from Newfoundland and Labrador,” engages in an assessment of the provincial government’s Purple Ribbon Campaign, which was launched in 2009. She argues that, even though the campaign has not escaped the influence of neoliberal priorities and ideologies,” which “has impeded the adoption of a deeper intersectional and structural feminist analysis of gender-based violence” in Newfoundland and Labrador, it has integrated “key elements of feminist analyses of violence, including explicitly gendered terminology, the lens of structural inequality, and a consideration of intersectionality, in its framework, message, and content.”
The final three articles engage with questions related to feminist theory, anti-oppressive pedagogies, and Women’s and Gender Studies as a discipline. In “La Grande Sartreuse?: Re-citing Simone de Beauvoir in Feminist Theory,” Kristin Rodier draws on Clare Hemmings’ work, Why Stories Matter: The Political Grammar of Feminist Theory (2011) and applies the critical tools of feminist storytelling and heterocitation to Simone de Beauvoir, whose work has often been the subject of “dichotomous” readings. By doing so, she revisits and thinks through Beauvoir’s place in feminist scholarship and feminist theoretical storytelling. Kate M. Daley, in “Having, Being, and Doing Privilege: Three Lenses for Focusing on Goals in Feminist Classrooms,” tackles the question of privilege as it operates in Women’s and Gender Studies and feminist classrooms. She proposes “three lenses that educators can use to understand privilege—as something we have, something we are, and something we do” and applies them to various classroom contexts and goals. She illustrates how the three lenses of privilege “can broaden the questions we ask

about privilege in our teaching practice and refocus our attention on the choices we are making and the goals we have as educators.” Finally, in “The Paradox of Inter/Disciplinarity: A Rethinking of the Politics of Inter/ Disciplinarity and ‘Women’s and Gender Studies’ for the Current Moment,” Karen McCallum, Felicia Rahaman, and Haley Turnbull explore the interdisciplinarity and disciplinary debates as they relate to Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) and argue that WGS “should be embraced and acknowledged as a discipline.” They further maintain that such discussions about “inter/disciplinarity are of particular relevance when considering the efficacy, purpose, and value of a WGS doctoral degree” and propose a Joint PhD program, which would address “questions related to disciplinary boundaries, the importance of disciplinary subjectivity, and the need for cross-disciplinary knowledge production and career training.”
The cover image is painted by William Montelpare, Margaret and Wallace McCain Chair in Human Development and Health at the University of Prince Edward Island. The painting is titled PEI North Shore Sunset (2013).
Enjoy the issue! Annalee Lepp and Ann Braithwaite Editors

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