***New Deadline - October 10, 2022***

Essence & Critique: Journal of Literature and Drama Studies invites submissions for a special issue of the journal on Myths, Archetypes and the Literary Arts.

We seek essays of 5,000 to 6,000 words for an anthology that explores American literature through the lens of social justice.  The volume will become a part of a popular literary series published by a major press.

CFP: European Writers in Exile

We have a contract with Lexington Books (an imprint of Rowman and Littlefield) in hand and are issuing a targeted call for, primarily, the following important writers.  We have accepted a number of essays already and are seeking now only to round out our volume, as follows.

We seek essays of 5,000 to 6,000 words for an anthology that explores the work of some of the more popular and/or influential European writers in nineteenth-, twentieth- and twenty-first-century exile. 

Though usually relegated to second status critically, the short story is having a moment. When Canadian writer Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2013, it was specifically for her contribution to the short story genre. As a writer who does not write novels, she acknowledged the importance of the award: “It’s a wonderful thing for the short story.” Indeed.

CFP: Russian & American Short Stories & Influence, updated

Abstract: 7/8/2019; Completed Draft: 12/1/2019

UPDATE: Below follows our original CFP, which we now update slightly and with urgency. We have thus far assembled an excellent collection of promised essays, but are now looking specifically for essays that meet the requirements below as well as1) are about Russian authors OTHER than Chekhov (as you can imagine, we quickly got our share of those) and 2) about American authors who are of color and/or women. Please read on and submit your idea(s) to us. We are excited to hear from you.

UPDATE: We have a contract with Lexington Books!

But we are posting our updated CFP because we would still like one or two more excellent essays on specific authors.  

CFP: Food in American Literature

Proposals due July 20, 2021

OVERVIEW:

UPDATE: CFP: Food in American Literature

Proposals due December 24, 2021

NOTE:

We are well along in the peer review process with a university press with favorable evaluations. In order to further bolster our collection, however, at this point we are looking only for proposals addressing the following:

• Food and one or more contemporary (last 20 years) African American texts;
• Food and one or more queer literary texts;
• Food and a 19th century American literary text.

For more detailed information on what to send, please see our original CFP below. Thank you.

OVERVIEW:

CFP: Modernism and Literature: A (Re)consideration

Proposals due September 1, 2022

OVERVIEW:

Call for Chapter Proposals:

Figures of Freedom in Anthropocene Fiction

We are soliciting chapters for a forthcoming book, Figures of Freedom in Anthropocene Fiction, a collection of essays examining how American literary, filmic, and televisual narratives have represented and reimagined themes of personal and political agency within the context of 21st-century aspirations and anxieties.

COVID showed us what we already knew, how fragile global capitalist societies are and how unresilient they become when the structures get shocked. Some of those structures deserve to be destroyed (authoritarianism, nationalism, racism, colonialism, labor exploitation, e.g.); others need to be shored up or replaced with even better institutions and practices (healthcare, the planetary ecosystem, wealth equity, social justice, e.g.). When these fragile structures fail, their failures disproportionately affect those least able to bear the harm. And, around the world, the harmful effects of exploitative structures are repeatedly discriminatorily directed.

READING WOMEN’S LIFE WRITING:A Critical Appraisal

At the center of the #MeToo movement lie survivor testimonies, which demystify victim-shaming, victim-blaming, and legitimizing the victim-survivor's testimony as the unquestionable truth. In the South Asian context, such testimonies are still a taboo, which leads to victim-survivors refusing to share and relive their experiences and narratives even if they have the means and access to do so. Our panel seeks to problematize the #MeToo movement in order to reimagine and contextualize it in South Asia and the South Asian diaspora as a much-needed intervention to examine the implications of a transnational feminist movement.

Competing concepts of “medicine” and “healing” abound, with roots in our period; what might we think of as “alternative” medicine? Competing conceptions of medicine were proposed by Bruonians (John Brown’s binary of stimulant vs sedative) and Cullenians (followers of William Cullen), and yet another by Samuel Hahnemann (the law of similars, the law of the minimal dose). We might consider physiological interventions (surgeries, purgings) in contrast with more palliative approaches aimed at restoring “nature’s balance.” The origins of obstetrics (and its displacement of midwives), anatomical dissection and pathology (and their relation to criminality), and mesmerism are linked to famous male figures but also their critics.