College English Special Issue

Heeding the Call: Insurgent Creativity, Eternal Stories, and Extending the Legacy of Critical Race Theory

Guest Editor: Aja Y. Martinez

Call for Papers

This fraught political moment has been characterized, in part, by an attack on the movement of legal storytelling most often referred to as Critical Race Theory (CRT). Throughout the movement’s history, CRT-related scholars have reached out to the Humanities, especially English Studies (inclusive of Literature, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric & Writing Studies). Now is the time to collectively respond to their call. Scholars in the Humanities have the tools to recognize the most recent attack on CRT as the marketing and branding exercise it is. We know that it is insufficient to point out how the opposition gets CRT wrong. Their story about CRT (although based on lies and inaccuracies) has already been too persuasive. As English Studies scholars, we know that we must fight story with story. More to the point, we must fight tall tales, myths, and presuppositions with the truth only stories can reveal.

Through their stories, legal storytelling exemplars such as Richard Delgado, Jean Stefancic, Patricia J. Williams, and Derrick A. Bell tell us (but also their field and any other field or person who has read their work) that story is how to do this work—story is the way. Telling stories is how we invite a multiplicity of audiences into the conversation, how we build opportunities for points of access to the content, be it the Constitution, theory, legal precedent, etc. The methodology of story in turn informs how we, as teachers of reading and writing, teach people to write their stories. Our broad field of English Studies includes contributions to concepts such as world building, dialogue, character development, style, diction, etc. Ours is the discipline of writing process and revision, reading and analysis, of rhetorical situation and effectiveness. We know how to compose; we know how to engage an audience; we know how to teach others to do this as well. Who better to take on this charge and carry it forward than us, English Studies? We have the tools, the equipment, the training, the lens, to engage this conversation on counterstory, the counterstories that will counter the stories the racist, radical right would weave and tell to disinform the public about CRT.

Our field can rise to the occasion, supporting CRT in this time of struggle. We are leaders in a conversation about the core questions of American society. Through our field’s unique Humanities-informed approach to the methodology of counterstory we can resource, equip, and contribute to the sustainability of CRT for years to come. But we must get it right. Our work as counterstory scholars, teachers, and writers in English Studies must be meticulous and precise. Any work we do with counterstory must be informed by the tenets of CRT. It cannot be sloppy work—it cannot be devoid of the interdisciplinary research involved in doing the reading, an awareness of the histories and key figures, knowing the foundations of CRT as an academic field and movement.

In the past two and half years of this mainstream, hot-button national fight, the urgency of storytelling through the methodology of counterstory has been underutilized by those seeking to defend and promote Critical Race Theory. It is time for scholars in the Humanities—scholars of English Studies in particular—to heed the call for collaboration issued by CRT founders and legal storytelling exemplars Delgado, Stefancic, Williams, and Bell. It is time to take back the narrative from those who would promote distortion and disinformation. It is time to extend the storytelling legacy of CRT, writing our own stories so others can be told.

Possible Topics and Questions to Consider:

• How do the histories, tenets, key figures, theories, methods, and/or pedagogies of CRT inform your work within English Studies?
• Within this political moment of vitriolic backlash against CRT, how does your work as an English Studies teacher-scholar-activist intervene in or contribute to resisting these ideologies at the local/state/national levels?
• What is the interface between CRT and your disciplinary area of English Studies, and what are the implications of this intersection for the future of CRT in education?

We are seeking:

• Article-length works (7,500 words)
• Autoethnographies, personal essays, or counterstories (2,000–4,000 words)
• Retrospective or prospective analyses (2,000–4,000 words)
• Bibliographic essays that trace a significant theory, idea, or approach throughout the work or history of CRT connecting that theory, idea, or approach to the field of English studies (2,000–4,000 words)
• Personal reminisces (300 words)

All submissions will undergo peer review prior to formal acceptance in this issue. Proposals should identify the intended topic, focus, and genre of the submission and briefly describe the author’s method or approach. Proposals should be no longer than 500 words, exclusive of the bibliography. Please email proposals to aja.martinez@unt.edu with the subject line “CRT Issue.”

Publication Timeline

Deadline for proposals: April 30, 2023

Initial acceptances sent: May 31, 2023

Completed manuscripts due for peer review: July 31, 2023

Feedback sent to authors: August 31, 2023

Revised works due: March 1, 2024

Theme issue published: mid-July 2024

*contributors submitting artwork or other visual tributes will need to attain any necessary consents or rights for photos or other copyrighted materials.

All prospective authors should review Anti-Racist Scholarly Reviewing Practices: A Heuristic for Editors, Reviewers, and Authors prior to submitting articles, reviews, or proposals for a Special Issue of College English.