Cather Studies 16: Willa Cather’s New York Intersections

deadline for submissions: 
February 1, 2024
full name / name of organization: 
Cather Studies, University of Nebraska Press
contact email: 

Call for submissions: Willa Cather’s New York Intersections

Submissions are invited for volume 16 of Cather Studies, to be published by the University of Nebraska Press. The theme for the volume will be “Willa Cather’s New York Intersections.” Submissions may address New York City as Cather knew it but also the metropolis that was present around her, though perhaps not always visible to her. 

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Cather and Greenwich Village culture: bohemianism, LGBTQ+ communities, immigrant communities, activist communities, etc.
  • Cather and the Harlem Renaissance: gaps and connections
  • Race and Racism
  • Queer studies approaches to Cather’s life and work
  • Public health and urban approaches to wellness and disease
  • Labor and class in the city
  • Metropolitan studies and the mapping of identity
  • Cather, Edith Lewis, and the New York publishing industry
  • The urban immigrant experience and Cather’s representations of it
  • Arts, performance, and music in New York
  • Ecocritical approaches to reading Cather’s depictions of New York City

Diverse critical and theoretical perspectives are encouraged. The volume is keyed to the theme of the Willa Cather International Seminar held in New York City in June 2023, but consideration is not limited to those who presented their work at the seminar. 

The volume will be edited by Melissa J. Homestead, Director of the Cather Project of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln English Department. Please submit essays of no more than 10,000 words (including notes) as e-mail attachments to mhomestead2@unl.edu by February 1, 2024. Citations should conform to the Chicago Manual of Style (notes only, no bibliography). Quotations from and citations to Cather’s works should be to Willa Cather Scholarly Edition volumes when available for the relevant work. Essays will undergo double-blind peer review.Authors of accepted contributions who wish to use illustrations will be responsible for obtaining reproductions and securing necessary permissions for publication. The editor may limit the number of illustrations due to space restrictions.