FRAME 35.2 “Sounding Literature” - Call for Papers

FRAME’s next issue is titled “Sounding Literature” and aims to focus on cross-disciplinary understandings of sound and silences in literature. In Western literary tradition, literature has traditionally been thought of as a silent medium, but this overlooks the way literature can give a voice to its authors, or the multitude of techniques used to represent sound, noise, music or silence in literary texts. The next issue of FRAME aims to add nuance to the understanding of literature as silent by inviting scholars from literary studies and related fields to think about the different ways literature engages with sound. How can literary texts evoke sound and how does that affect readers? How have audiobooks changed literary practices? How has the invention of recording devices changed literary texts and the act of writing? 

We find that the relationship between text and sound is present across different disciplines in the humanities, and therefore welcome articles that consider such perspectives. How can literature engage with the noise and silence associated with urban and rural areas? Can a decolonial approach to sound unsettle the coloniality of literary voice? How does spoken word poetry engage with orality? Can nonhuman sounds or silences represent the loss of biodiversity as a result of climate change? Can literature represent the sounds that are unrecordable, such as the way one’s brain might provide a voice to narrate thoughts? How does ‘deaf literature’ engage with sound representations in text, and does sign language alter the practice of story-telling? Can literature represent non-human sounds, like the songs sung by humpback whales? How can recording devices and other forms of technology shape auditory experiences in texts?

Themes and topics related to these questions might include (but are not limited to):

• Nonhuman or multispecies soundscapes
• Decolonial practices of writing about sound, music, noise, or silence
• Indigenous perspectives on auditory experiences
• Children’s literature and onomatopoeia
• The noise of texts or noise in texts 
• The role of silence in fiction 
• Poetic representations of non-Western forms of music, dance, and orality 
• Audiobooks
• Narrating popular music and musical aesthetics 
• Technology and sound in narrative fiction
• Sonic affect and queer studies 

The questions and topics above are only some of the many themes that can be explored in our upcoming issue. However, we would like to stress that although both FRAME and this topic in particular invite interdisciplinary and creative approaches from many different fields, all submissions should be clearly connected to literary studies. FRAME is a literary platform first and foremost, and our editing reflects that.

If you are interested in writing for FRAME 35.2 “Sounding Literature”, please submit a brief proposal of max. 500 words by May 5th, 2022. Proposals should include a thesis statement, general structure and a preliminary reflection on the theories and discourses in which the argument will be situated. On the basis of all abstracts, contributors whose proposals are accepted will be notified and asked to submit a draft version of the paper before 27 June 2022. Be mindful that we hold the right to reject draft versions to ensure consistency and coherence across all contributions to the issue.

The deadline for the first full version of articles will be 28 August 2022, after which the editing process will commence. FRAME 35.2 will go to print in late november and thus be available in December. The word limit for articles in our main section, which is reserved for scholars with a doctoral degree, is 5400 words, including bibliography and footnotes. In our masterclass section, we invite PhD candidates and graduate students for articles with a word limit of 3500 words. Should you have any questions, feel free to contact us at info@frameliteraryjournal.com. More information about our journal, as well as our submission guidelines, can be found on our website: www.frameliteraryjournal.com.