For Critical Insights volume under contract:

Madness in Literature

DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS: January 9, 2026

We invite proposals for a wide-ranging exploration of madness in literature. Madness has been one of literature’s most enduring motifs. From ancient stories of divine possession and ecstatic vision to Shakespearean unravelings and nineteenth-century asylum narratives, madness has long functioned as a lens through which authors probe the limits of reason, identity, and social order. These works have shaped how we read instability, delusion, rupture, and rapture in literary texts. They also remind us that madness often begins not with collapse, but with intensities—obsession, vengeance, grief, desire—that drive a character past the boundaries of the ordinary mind. 

At the same time, the concept of madness is far from fixed, as literature continues to reconsider the definition of sanity, and reimagine who is labeled as mad. Contemporary considerations often challenge the assumption that madness is an endpoint, treating it instead as process, coping strategy, political accusation, or even structural logic. As literature evolves, it continues to expand the vocabulary for understanding how characters respond to trauma.

Submissions may consider madness in any number of ways, so long as they focus on unveiling how madness unveils itself in their chosen text(s). Contributors might examine the visible manifestations of madness, or reveal the pressures that accumulate, the ideologies that control, the griefs that undo, and the systems that produce instability. How do authors depict the factors that push a mind toward its limits? What can portrayals of madness teach us about agency, trauma, identity, or the limits of rationality? What counts as madness in a given cultural moment, and who gets labeled mad in the first place?

We encourage proposals that draw from classical, modern, and contemporary works across genres. Interdisciplinary approaches—psychological, sociological, philosophical, medical, disability-studies informed—are welcome. So are close readings that explore the text on its own terms. The publisher prefers works that are broadly recognized or frequently taught, rather than highly obscure selections. Essays that consider the following writers and works will be appreciated, though the volume will not be limited to these:

• Edgar Allan Poe 
• King Lear, Lady MacBeth, Ophelia
• Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
• Toni Morrison
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• Don Quixote
• The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
• Heart of Darkness
• The Metamorphosis
• The Painted Bird
• “Night on the Galactic Railroad”
• Jane Eyre
• Octavia Butler
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower
• Ordinary People
• Samuel Beckett
• Sophocles, Ajax
• Euripides, Heracles and Bacchae
• Seneca, Medea
• Sylvia Plath
• Leslie Marmom Silko, Ceremony
• Wide Sargasso Sea

Submissions should be conceived and composed within reach of students at the secondary and undergraduate levels. Essays that attempt to define particular forms of madness, and/or articulate the tension characters face should prove edifying to such a readership. While the works here will be peer-reviewed, this is scholarship for readers, not for other scholars.

Submissions should be tailored to one of the following categories:

• A CRITICAL RECEPTION essay (~5000 words) that traces the reception of madness from an early work to today;­
• CRITICAL LENS essays (~5000 words) that offer a close reading of madness from a particular critical standpoint;
• COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS essays (~5000 words) that analyze madness as influential to—or influenced by—another work by this or another author;
• CRITICAL READING essays (~5000 words) that focus on contemporary readings of madness, with emphasis on ways high school and college readers might be able to appreciate or problematize the text(s) with new eyes and current literary theories.

By January 9, please submit a 250-350-word abstract with a clear focus, a 75-word biographical statement (including your affiliation), and contact information to the acquiring editor, Dr. Laura Nicosia: lauranicosia@gmail.com.

Submissions of approximately 5000 words will need to be completed by April 24, 2026, utilizing MLA style.

Honoraria will be awarded by the publisher to contributors after publication.