Dissension exists on a spectrum. It can be expressed on an individual scale—by rejecting challenges to ethical or moral beliefs—or within collectives that object to systems that harm or subjugate. Literature can be used as an act of protest and resistance, to create counter narratives that combat oppressive agendas; it can mirror the outcry of societies that wish to test the limits of oppression but lack the voice to do so. Now more than ever, it is imperative that we listen to those voices that systems continually work to silence. Authoritarianism, protest, incarceration, and revolution are interwoven themes that dominate allegorical genres such as dystopian fiction. In George Orwell’s timeless 1984, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, draconian regimes manipulate truth, language, and the body, while Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games and Veronica Roth’s Divergent explore resistance within technologically advanced totalitarian systems. These imagined regimes echo current political structures, where dissent is criminalized and bodies become battlegrounds. While they might not spotlight media manipulation or violent means of coercion as explicitly as dystopia, sometimes more discreet modes of writing, such as poetry or memoirs, can ring the loudest: works like Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s semi-autobiographical novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, the poetry of Ethridge Knight, and The Autobiography of Malcolm X all feature first hand accounts of incarceration, offering insights into both the dehumanizing processes employed by authoritarian power structures, and how to resist them. Harnessing power is not merely a means to repress, but also a mechanism for consolidating truths that are maintained through discourse, surveillance, and control over bodies and histories. In such repressive regimes, the ownership and distribution of narrative become tools of both domination and resistance. Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks and Althusser’s analysis of Ideological State Apparatuses illuminate how state power reproduces itself through education, law, and culture. Postcolonial theorists like Franz Fanon, and writers like Isabela Figueiredo, confront the legacies of empire and racial domination, aligning with Foucault’s notion of biopower as a controlling and subjugating tool.

In this issue of FRAME, we invite scholars of literary studies and other related fields to engage with the topics of authoritarianism, propaganda, incarceration, revolution, protests, and the blurred line between truth and fiction. Who owns a narrative, and how does this ownership determine the effect a work of literature has? How are narratives preserved for the archive, how does this affect current and future narratives? How do imprisoned artists and intellectuals continue to create while incarcerated, and how do these works make it to a larger audience? How do different critical frameworks read and/or critique authority? Themes and topics related to these questions might include, but are not limited to:

• Personal narrative VS state narrative (insider vs outsider perspectives) body 

• How communities experience the same oppressive systems differently

• Collective memory as resistance

• The politics of Truth

• Censorship, production, and distribution

• Literature as propaganda VS counterpropaganda 

• Language/Translation as subversion or manipulation

• Gatekeeping of information and education

• Book banning/burnings (historical & fictional accounts)

• Dystopia, its increase of popularity

• Imagined regimes (in pop culture)

• The aesthetics of resistance & oppression (e.g. fashion, graphic/street art, etc.)                                                                             

• Imprisonment and resistance intellectualism

• Who has the right to move, and to where

• Representations of authority

The above questions and concerns are only a few of the many themes that could be explored in the upcoming issue. However, we would like to stress that while FRAME encourages interdisciplinary and creative approaches, every submission should show a clear connection to literary studies, as we are a literary journal first and foremost.

If you are interested in writing for FRAME, please submit a brief abstract of max. 300 words, accompanied by a structured outline by 5 September 2025. Proposals should include a thesis statement, general structure, and a preliminary reflection on the argument’s theoretical framework. On the basis of all proposals, contributors whose proposals are accepted will be notified by 12 September 2025, and asked to submit a draft version of the paper by 31 October 2025. Be mindful that we hold the right to reject draft versions to ensure consistency and coherence across all contributions to the issue.