Call for Chapters: Invoking History: Power, Bodies, BDSM - Edited Volume (proposed for Routledge)

Call for Chapters

Invoking History: Power, Bodies, BDSM

Edited Volume (proposed for Routledge)

About the Volume : Invoking History: Power, Bodies, BDSM explores BDSM (Bondage and Discipline/Domination and Submission/Sadism and Masochism) as both a set of erotic practices and a critical, hermeneutical lens through which to interrogate the historical entanglements of power, bodies, and sexuality. It examines how BDSM operates as a site of queer temporality, resisting linear narratives of repression and liberation and contributing to a historical framework of dissidence. Drawing on queer theory, feminist discourses, and historical analyses, the book highlights BDSM’s potential to subvert normative power structures and shape alternative forms of subjectivity and relationality.

Unlike existing works, which often focus on BDSM from psychological, sociological, or medical (and often pathologizing) perspectives, this book is structured on an interdisciplinary approach. It situates BDSM within a broader socio-political and historical framework, showing how these practices reclaim agency, interrogate power, and function as tools of resistance. The book’s innovative perspective bridges historical research, queer studies, and the politics of sexuality, offering fresh insights into the role BDSM plays in both historical and contemporary struggles over bodily self-determination and identity. In doing so, it contributes significantly to cultural history, illustrating how sadomasochistic practices reflect and respond to historical shifts in power, control, and societal norms surrounding sexuality and the body. In framing BDSM as a performance with/in/against power, the book will focus on the politics of gender construction, the performative nature of gender and discussions of binarism in sexuality across different times and cultures. Analysing power dynamics between male/female, heterosexual/homosexual and cis/trans* polarities - as well as able-bodied/disabled, thin/fat, and other conforming/non-conforming dichotomies - it provides a lens through which to gain a complex and multifaceted historical understanding of sexual dissent. The multi-disciplinary nature of the book ensures a comprehensive study of BDSM as both a lived practice and a theoretical framework.

This book delves into the intersections of BDSM, history, and power, exploring how sadomasochistic practices operate as a form of sexual dissidence. It situates BDSM within queer history and thought, examining its role in subverting traditional hierarchies and enabling alternative relationalities. Drawing from feminist thought, theorizations of sexual dissidence, and queer temporalities, the book traces how BDSM reclaims bodily agency through rituals, fetishism, and pain, linking these practices to political positionalities.

Through a multidisciplinary approach that incorporates historical analysis, queer and gender theory, and cultural analysis, the book critically engages with the evolution of BDSM from pathologized deviance to a politically charged site of resistance. It investigates how BDSM’s play with power reflects broader societal struggles over authority, autonomy, and self-definition. Furthermore, the book underscores BDSM’s relevance for cultural history, demonstrating how its practices serve as historical markers that reflect shifting attitudes toward sexuality, consent, and power. Ultimately, this work offers a compelling argument for understanding BDSM as a complex and historically situated practice that challenges dominant narratives of sexuality and identity, making it an essential contribution to queer, cultural, and feminist scholarship.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

BDSM as a historical practice and archive of sexual dissidence;
Power, domination, submission, and consent as historical categories;
BDSM and queer temporality: non-linear histories of sexuality;
Sadomasochism and the politics of the body;
BDSM and the critique of normative and hegemonic power structures;
Resistance to pathologization and medicalization in the history of sexuality;
BDSM, agency, and alternative forms of subjectivity:
BDSM and archives: sources, methods, and epistemological challenges
BDSM as a hermeneutical lens for reading history and power relations;
Eroticization of power dynamics throughout history, and in arts, literature, performance;
BDSM and political positionalities;
BDSM/erotic historical reconstructions.
Submission Guidelines
Prospective contributors are invited to submit:

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An abstract of 300–400 words, outlining the proposed chapter’s argument, sources, and methodological approach

A short biographical note (100–150 words)

Selected chapters are expected to be 6,000–8,000 words (including notes and references) and written in English.

Timeline

Abstract submission deadline: 31st March, 2026

Notification of acceptance: 15th April, 2026

Full chapter submission: End 2026

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Editors

Anna Chiara Corradino (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa)

Serena Guarracino (Università degli Studi dell’Aquila)

Virginia Gg Niri (independent researcher)

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Contact : Abstracts and enquiries should be sent to :
annachiara.corradino1@gmail.com; serena.guarracino@gmail.com; virginia.niri@gmail.com