The history of "rights" as a concept is mired in complications. Regarded as the moral or legal recognition of interests or entitlements of individuals and communities, rights have been present in history in a variety of ways - both justiciable and not. This history of rights, and the securing of rights, is long and arduous, and has taken various forms along the way - with sudden victories and abrupt revocations all the same - resulting in the present that we find ourselves in now. This search for rights, for equitable entitlements and liberation, also leads to complicated ways and means of understanding the self that do not follow linear paths - resulting in fractalized and multifarious ways of identification and belonging that vitiate the process of becoming. The upcoming Summer 2025 issue of L'Histoire aims to tackle this contentious process of gaining and losing rights, and finding and breaking the self in the process - in the search for a more 'just' and 'equitable' world. Voyages into the Past invites students, scholars, and academics to delve into the theme and contribute freely as they may choose.

Below are some of the possible themes:

1. The Elusive Nature of Rights: Reversals and curtailments.
2. The relationship between individual and community rights in the face of populism throughout history.
3. From Exclusion towards the Goal of Inclusion: Tracing the development of universal rights and analysing extant limitations
4. Struggle for rights under colonial rule and the idea of rights in a decolonized world. 
5. Analysing Gender and LGBTQIA+ rights in an environment of growing state repression.
6. Discrimination and difference in the shaping of community identities.
7. Individual agency and the challenge to state-sanctioned values.
8. Human Rights discourses in the face of genocide.
9. Intersections, Issues and The Linguistic Gap: Communicating Subaltern Struggle to the Dominant.
10. Prisoners' rights and the forgetting of carceral violence in the discourse on justice.
11. Enforcement and exercise of rights for Foreign Nationals in host countries.
12. Looking into vulnerability and oppression resultant from arbitrary state-sanctioned revision in laws.

This is not an exhaustive list and we welcome topics and writings on fields related to the theme of the author's choice. If you wish to enquire about the same, please mail the editors at editor.voyages2023@gmail.com.

Standardized guidelines for submission include:

1. Font Size: 12
2. Font Style: Times New Roman
3. Line Spacing: 1.5
4. Page Numbers to be included.
5. The endnotes must be single-spaced in Times New Roman 10 point size font. 
6. All citations should be included as endnote citations. Refrain from using both in-text citations and endnote citations. 
7. The endnotes and bibliography should follow the rules of the Chicago Manual of Style 17th Edition. 
8. Entries to be no longer than 5000 words.
9. If images are used in the essay, please include them in the form of an annexure at the very end of the essay. 
10. We would recommend that jargon be avoided as best as possible. This magazine straddles academic and public spheres, and thus, is aimed at a mixed audience. 

Submit all essays via google form. The link is:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSckX9Ds6xSJ23fBi8X-46LeDWNsHv26...

The deadline for submissions is 15th June 2025. 
 

Contact Information

Himaghna Bandyopadhyay, Joint Editor-in-Chief, Voyages into the Past

Sumedha Banerjee, Joint Editor-in-Chief, Voyages into the Past

Mihir Seth, Convenor, Voyages into the Past

Contact Emaileditor.voyages2023@gmail.comURLhttps://www.voyagesintothepast.com/