Flux/Flow Cincinatti, OH: Call For Papers

The Call for Papers for SECAC 2025 in Cincinnati, OH, is open! Please review the list of sessions and submit your papers by Tuesday, April 1, 2025 11:59 EST.

Conference at a Glance:
Dates: October 22 – 25, 2025
Venue:  Hilton Cincinnati Netherland Plaza
Call for Papers: February 1 – April 1, 2025
Conference web page:  Cincinnati – SECAC

Proposals can be submitted through https://secac.secure-platform.com/a/solicitations/28/home

Tidal Flux: The Representation of Menstrual Periods in Art

Session Chair: Shen Qu, Arizona State University (shenqu@asu.edu)

For centuries, menstruation has been stigmatized as impure, reflecting the broader societal positioning of women as secondary. In recent years, however, artists like Mira Schor and Harmony Hammond have challenged these narratives by highlighting menstruation as a powerful symbol of womanhood, emphasizing women’s time, labor, and resilience. Through the direct use of blood marks or by representing the material culture surrounding menstruation, they reveal its often-overlooked significance in women’s lives. This session aims to examine diverse artistic representations of menstruation and explore how these works challenge and expand our understanding of gender roles in art history. We invite papers that approach the studies of feminist art history broadly and from multiple perspectives, including but not limited to: visual and multi-media representations of menstruation; feminist history of craft and “self-taught” art; the female body as alternative and decolonial modes of history writing.

Submission Guidelines:

Interested participants should submit a paper title and abstract (200 words max) through the SECAC submissions platform: https://secac.secure-platform.com/a/solicitations/28/home. The deadline to submit a paper proposal is 1 April 2025, 11:59 PM EST. Notifications to applicants will be sent no later than 20 May 2025. PLEASE NOTE: All presentations are in person. All conference participants, including accepted speakers and session chairs, must be (or become) an active SECAC member in addition to paying the conference registration fee.

For questions about this session, please contact me at shenqu@asu.edu. For questions regarding SECAC and/or the annual conference, please contact Academic Director Tracy Stonestreet (SECACdirector@umw.edu). For questions related to the application portal, please contact SECAC Administrator Rebecca Parker (rparker@secac.org).