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Call for Papers: Labor, Desire, & the Working Body -- SECAC 2026

Type: Calls For Papers [View all]
Posted by: Southeastern College Art Conference (SECAC)
Deadline: Wed, April 1st, 2026

Call for Papers: SECAC 2026 in Winston-Salem, NC October 21st - 24th

Labor, Desire, and the Working Body: Queer Visual Culture and the Politics of Class

Chair: Alex Del Dago, University of Virginia

CFP Deadline: April 1st, 2026 at midnight

https://secac.secure-platform.com/a/solicitations/30/home

This panel investigates how queer artists have engaged with representations of the laboring body to negotiate questions of desire, class identity, and political solidarity. From the end of the nineteenth century through the present day, depictions of physical work have served as charged sites where sexuality and class consciousness intersect and complicate one another. Rather than treating labor imagery and queer visual culture as separate traditions, this session examines how artists mobilized the iconography of physical labor to articulate complex relationships between erotic investment and class politics.

This panel invites scholars to explore the multifaceted connections between modern and contemporary queer art history, American art, and labor studies. We aim to delve into a spectrum of topics, including (but not limited to): The appropriation, reimagining, or subversion of working-class bodies by queer artists; Homoerotic aesthetics within social realist and labor-focused visual traditions; Queer reinterpretations of historical labor imagery in contemporary art; Visual strategies that link bodily labor to collective identity, desire, and resistance

Furthermore, this panel seeks to examine how these artistic practices illuminate overlooked histories of political artmaking and enrich our understanding of how identity shapes aesthetic production and ideological meaning. By foregrounding the intersection of queer desire and labor representation, the session highlights how struggles around sexuality, class, and economic inequality have informed (and continue to inform) one another.

This scholarship is especially vital in the present moment, as contemporary debates surrounding labor rights, economic precarity, and queer politics demand a deeper understanding of how these movements intersect and mutually reinforce each other. We welcome interdisciplinary approaches and papers that address visual media across geographic and temporal contexts.

All proposals & supporting documentation must be submitted through the submission platform: https://secac.secure-platform.com/a/solicitations/30/home

Proposals sent to session chairs directly will not be considered for inclusion in the conference program. Deadline: Wednesday, April 1st, 2026, 11:59PM EST.

Posted on Thu, March 5th, 2026
Expires on Wed, April 1st, 2026

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