South Atlantic Review Special Issue

In The Time of Man and Beyond:

Rethinking Elizabeth Madox Roberts for the 21st Century

Proposals due November 21, 2025

Guest Editors:

James Stamant, Agnes Scott College

Amanda M. Capelli, New York University

Goretti Benca, Marist College

This special issue of the South Atlantic Review, the official journal of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, aims to explore the life and work of Elizabeth Madox Roberts through a wide variety of perspectives and lenses. Roberts’ work speaks beyond its time about issues that remain deeply contested in the U.S. and globally, and in a moment when questions of what constitutes American history--and whose voices belong within it--are increasingly scrutinized, an issue dedicated to Roberts, and the themes her work explore, seems not only timely, but urgent.

While The Time of Man (1926) continues to resonate with contemporary readers, as a modernist and member of the Southern Renascence, Roberts has a wide-ranging oeuvre that broke ground in terms of style and subject matter. For instance, her second novel, My Heart and My Flesh (1927), tackles race in Roberts’ native home of Kentucky; Jingling in the Wind (1928) plays with the novel form in ways similar to that of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf; and the short story, “The Scarecrow,” published in 1932, complicates representations of disability in ways that prefigure current conversations around mental health. 

With the 100th anniversary of The Time of Man approaching next year, the guest editors are currently seeking proposals for essays that demonstrate the wide-ranging influence and lasting legacy of Roberts’ landmark novelas well as perspectives that illustrate Roberts’ significance in our present moment. Potential topics to consider:

• Intertextual readings of Roberts and other writers including her contemporaries and collaborations with other artists
• The Time of Man and its relationship to or complication of the Southern Renascence
• Roberts poetry and its influences/confluences
• Roberts in the context of European and Trans-Atlantic literature
• Roberts relationships with her contemporaries
• Recontextualizing/Rereading/Reclaiming Roberts in the 21st Century
• Intersections between Roberts and contemporary Kentucky authors (ie. Silas House, Barbara Kingslover, Bonnie Jo Campbell, C.E. Morgan, and Frank X. Walker)

The total word count for the final submission is 6500-8000 words, in English, inclusive of notes and works cited.

Abstracts/Proposals (500 words max) are due by November 21, 2025. Please include a short bio (maximum 100 words).

Selections will be made by December 1, 2025. Those invited to participate in the issue will be asked to submit complete essays for editing and peer review by February 1, 2026, with final revisions due by May 31, 2026. The Special Issue is planned for publication in the winter of 2026.

Send questions and submissions to the editors: James Stamant (jstamant@agnesscott.edu), Amanda Capelli (ac4046@nyu.edu), and Goretti Benca (gmbenca@gmail.com)

Notes on Guest Editors:

James Stamant is a visiting associate professor of English at Agnes Scott College. His research and writing interests include Southern Literature, Modernism, media, and American writing on political violence. His monograph, Competing Stories: Modernist Authors, Newspapers, and the Movies, examines the connections between the media and authorship in the first part of the 20th century. He is a past-president of the Elizabeth Madox Roberts Society.

Amanda Capelli is a clinical associate professor in the Expository Writing Program at New York University. Her research and writing interests include Southern women writers, representations of madness and mental illness, poetics of place, and the intersections of objects and memory. Her essays and reviews have appeared in Cagibi: A Literary Place,Talking Writing, North Carolina Literary Review, The Routledge Companion to Literature of the U.S. South, and elsewhere.

Goretti Benca is an Instructional Designer and part-time faculty member at Marist University. Her research and writing interests include Southern women writers, American Modernism, multi-media and literature, food and literature, and children and young adult literature. Her essays have appeared in The Hemingway Review and elsewhere. She is a past-president of the Elizabeth Madox Roberts Society.

South Atlantic Review Special Issue

In The Time of Man and Beyond: 

Rethinking Elizabeth Madox Roberts for the 21st Century

Proposals due November 21, 2025

Guest Editors:

James Stamant, Agnes Scott College

Amanda M. Capelli, New York University

Goretti Benca, Marist College

This special issue of the South Atlantic Review, the official journal of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, aims to explore the life and work of Elizabeth Madox Roberts through a wide variety of perspectives and lenses. Roberts’ work speaks beyond its time about issues that remain deeply contested in the U.S. and globally, and in a moment when questions of what constitutes American history--and whose voices belong within it--are increasingly scrutinized, an issue dedicated to Roberts, and the themes her work explore, seems not only timely, but urgent. 

While The Time of Man (1926) continues to resonate with contemporary readers, as a modernist and member of the Southern Renascence, Roberts has a wide-ranging oeuvre that broke ground in terms of style and subject matter. For instance, her second novel, My Heart and My Flesh (1927), tackles race in Roberts’ native home of Kentucky; Jingling in the Wind (1928) plays with the novel form in ways similar to that of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf; and the short story, “The Scarecrow,” published in 1932, complicates representations of disability in ways that prefigure current conversations around mental health.  

With the 100th anniversary of The Time of Man approaching next year, the guest editors are currently seeking proposals for essays that demonstrate the wide-ranging influence and lasting legacy of Roberts’ landmark novelas well as perspectives that illustrate Roberts’ significance in our present moment. Potential topics to consider:

• Intertextual readings of Roberts and other writers including her contemporaries and collaborations with other artists

• The Time of Man and its relationship to or complication of the Southern Renascence

• Roberts poetry and its influences/confluences

• Roberts in the context of European and Trans-Atlantic literature

• Roberts relationships with her contemporaries

• Recontextualizing/Rereading/Reclaiming Roberts in the 21st Century

• Intersections between Roberts and contemporary Kentucky authors (ie. Silas House, Barbara Kingslover, Bonnie Jo Campbell, C.E. Morgan, and Frank X. Walker)

The total word count for the final submission is 6500-8000 words, in English, inclusive of notes and works cited.

Abstracts/Proposals (500 words max) are due by November 21, 2025. Please include a short bio (maximum 100 words).

Selections will be made by December 1, 2025. Those invited to participate in the issue will be asked to submit complete essays for editing and peer review by February 1, 2026, with final revisions due by May 31, 2026. The Special Issue is planned for publication in the winter of 2026.

Send questions and submissions to the editors: James Stamant (jstamant@agnesscott.edu), Amanda Capelli (ac4046@nyu.edu), and Goretti Benca (gmbenca@gmail.com) 

Notes on Guest Editors:

James Stamant is a visiting associate professor of English at Agnes Scott College. His research and writing interests include Southern Literature, Modernism, media, and American writing on political violence. His monograph, Competing Stories: Modernist Authors, Newspapers, and the Movies, examines the connections between the media and authorship in the first part of the 20th century. He is a past-president of the Elizabeth Madox Roberts Society.

Amanda Capelli is a clinical associate professor in the Expository Writing Program at New York University. Her research and writing interests include Southern women writers, representations of madness and mental illness, poetics of place, and the intersections of objects and memory. Her essays and reviews have appeared inCagibi: A Literary Place,Talking Writing, North Carolina Literary Review, The Routledge Companion to Literature of the U.S. South, and elsewhere.

Goretti Benca is an Instructional Designer and part-time faculty member at Marist University. Her research and writing interests include Southern women writers, American Modernism, multi-media and literature, food and literature, and children and young adult literature. Her essays have appeared in The Hemingway Review and elsewhere. She is a past-president of the Elizabeth Madox Roberts Society.