Call for Papers - Enthymema Special Issue (December 2027)

Matter, Materials, and (Un)Natural Resources in Science Fiction

Guest editors: Marco Malvestio (University of Padova) and Valentina Romanzi (University of Verona)

When thinking about science fiction, the question of what sustains the material existence of those faraway worlds is seldom asked. What fuel powers the spaceships in Battlestar Galactica? Who keeps the lights on after the apocalypse? What imaginary substances and (un)natural elements make up otherworldly environments? In the most complex narrative universes, such answers are often available (in Battlestar Galactica, for instance, the fuel is Tylium) and sometimes central to the plot. Nevertheless, limited critical attention has been devoted to the materiality of science fiction. From the spice in Dune (1965) to Theodore Sturgeon’s crystal aliens (The Dreaming Jewels, 1950), from sentient asteroids (Fredric Brown’s Rogue in Space, 1957) to vibranium in the Marvel universe, from planetary terraforming (for example in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy, 1993–1996) to the exploitation of more or less realistic resources (Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Word for World Is Forest, 1972), matter becomes a protagonist alongside characters, shaping societies, economies, and conflicts.

This special issue of Enthymema seeks to investigate the role of materials and (un)natural resources in science-fictional worlds broadly conceived, with attention to their symbolic, narrative, ecological, and political dimensions. We welcome interdisciplinary contributions from literature, film, digital media, cultural studies, and sister subjects, with the goal of understanding how science fiction uses matter to construct ethically and ontologically complex narrative worlds.

In recent years, the humanities—especially ecocriticism—have witnessed an “elemental turn” that highlights the agency of natural elements and non-living matter in cultural and narrative practices. Recent studies such as those by Moritz Ingwersen and Timo Müller (“The Aesthetics and Politics of Elemental Agency,” 2022) and earlier by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Lowell Duckert (Elemental Criticism, 2015) have shown how air, water, earth, and fire are not mere narrative backdrops but agents capable of influencing plots, conflicts, and social configurations. The nebulous field of geopoetics demonstrates the strong correlation between world-matter and art (see Leeuw and Magrane, “Geopoetics,” 2019). Literary studies on extractivism (see Imre Szeman and Jennifer Wenzel, “What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Extractivism?”, 2021) underscore its pervasiveness within the (late) capitalist cultural system. These studies intersect and expand the “material turn” best exemplified by Serenella Iovino and Serpil Oppermann’s edited collection Material Ecocriticism (2014), where the philosophy of new materialism in the vein of Jane Bennett’s Vibrant Matter (2009), Stacy Alaimo’s Bodily Natures (2010), and Astrida Neimanis’s Bodies of Water (2017) meets literary and narrative theory.

Based on these premises, we invite submissions addressing, but not limited to, the following topics within science fiction:

• Natural elements in science fiction: air, water, fire, earth, and their representation
• Rare or nonexistent materials: imaginary minerals, invented metals and chemical compounds, and other unique resources in science-fictional universes, together with their role in worldbuilding and narrative
• Extractivism and environmental conflicts: exploitation and management of natural and imaginary resources; analyses of social, political, and ecological consequences, from the global scale to the microeconomies of science-fictional societies
• Sentient minerals and geological formations: planets, rocks, caves, and crystals endowed with consciousness or agency, as in N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy; relationships between material environments and intelligent life forms
• Intersections between science and imagination: how science fiction reinvents physical, chemical, and geological laws to build coherent worlds; studies on scientific realism and the metaphorical potential of materials
• Materials and natural elements as cultural and political symbols: the role of materials in constructing identity and power, including critical and postcolonial perspectives
• Materials, elements, and corporeality: how bodies and consciousness interact with materials and elements

Submission Guidelines

We invite scholars to submit proposals engaging with one or more of the topics listed above, including textual, cinematic, or multimedia analyses, theoretical reflections, or interdisciplinary case studies. Submission can be in English or Italian.

Submissions should include:

• an abstract of approximately 500 words,
• a provisional bibliography,
• a short biographical note (150 words).

Deadline for abstract submission: November 1, 2026 

Submission method: via email to marco.malvestio@unipd.it; valentina.romanzi@univr.it

Invited full papers are due June 30, 2027, via the journal’s website.