Call for Papers for an Anthology

“The Colours of Pride: Queer Identities in Literature and Culture”

Submit to minimelow2025@gmail.com

Submissions close on 15 January 2026

Submit your paper to: minimelow2025@gmail.com  

Papers are invited for an anthology to be brought out by a reputed international publisher on the theme, “The Colours of Pride: Queer Identities in Literature and Culture.” 

Concept Note

Over the last few decades, we have noted a marked change in the way LGBTQ+ identities are portrayed and interpreted in literature, the media, and society. The presence of persons who differ from the mainstream in their gender and sexual identities increasingly tends to be out of the cupboard, moving from the background to the fore, from subtextual appearances and coded references to outspoken celebrations of resistance, love, and identity.

The anthology seeks to explore and analyze the changing terrain of LGBTQ+ representation in literature and culture. It will look at how issues of nation, language, class, caste, tradition, and power interact with narratives that celebrate differences from heteronormativity and cisgender norms. The collection aims to promote different and intersectional viewpoints, showcasing texts from many linguistic, regional, and cultural backgrounds.

We seek to foster an inclusive and diverse dialogue, inviting scholars from literature, philosophy, cultural studies, and related fields to participate. Examining literary texts from different historical periods, genres, and cultural contexts, participants will contribute to a nuanced understanding of humanity's evolving attitude towards gender and sexuality. Queer Ecocriticism is a potent perspective suggesting a thorough and discerning, original understanding of sexuality in nature and the human world by challenging the very idea of the natural/unnatural binary. There is no sexual orientation which is unnatural in the world of nature. It is not a matter of choice or luxury, but of basic need.

Our aim is to create an inclusive academic space for discussion of this timely subject that remains underrepresented in academic discourse. We will focus on areas that include (but are not restricted to) the following: Queer theory and literary criticism; Intersectionality: Queerness and caste, class, region, religion, race, disability; Shifting representations of queer identities in literature, film, theatre, and other cultural texts; Queer autobiographies, memoirs, and life-writing; Indigenous, regional, and non-Western perspectives on gender and sexuality; Censorship, silence, and the politics of queer visibility; Translations and the language of queerness; Queer spaces: urban/rural, digital/real, imagined/embodied; Teaching queer texts: pedagogy, resistance, and acceptance.

We welcome critical, interdisciplinary, as well as creative contributions.

Tentative Sub-Themes

• Pedagogies of the Queer: Teaching and Textual Strategies
• From Closet to Celebration: Narrating Queer Histories
• Performing Pride: Queer Aesthetics in Theatre, Film, and Art
• Resisting Erasure: Memory, Trauma, and Identity
• Translation and Transgression: The Language of the Other
• Rainbow Texts: Queer Presences in Indian Languages
• Love, Law, and Literature: From Section 377 to Queer Utopias
• Queer Ecocriticism

Submission Guidelines: an abstract of 200–250 words along with 4-5 keywords, may be sent with the complete paper (6000-8000 words) on one of the above themes in the latest MLA format to minimelow2025@gmail.com along with a short bio (100 words), by 15January 2026.

This is a project led by MELOW (The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the World), which has now completed almost three decades and has held twenty-seven international conferences. For details, see the following links:

https://www.melow.in

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003036474708 

https://melusmelow.blogspot.com/ 

Editorial Board

Manju Jaidka is the Founder-President of MELOW and formerly Professor and Chairperson of the Department of English, Panjab University, Chandigarh. She is the Chief Editor of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Indian Writing in English (2024) and the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Diasporic Indian English Writing (Springer, 2025). In addition to her extensive scholarly work, she is an established creative writer.

Manpreet Kaur Kang is Professor and Dean at the School of Humanities & Social Sciences, GGS Indraprastha University, Delhi, and serves as the Secretary of MELOW. She is the Editor of MEJO: The MELOW Journal of World Literature, has guest-edited issues of RIAS (a Scopus-listed journal), and has been the long-time editor of Indraprasth, the GGSIPU journal. She contributes regularly to international academic journals.

Roshan Lal Sharma is Senior Professor of English and Dean at the Central University of Himachal Pradesh, Dharamshala. A former Fulbright Fellow, he is an accomplished academician, critic, translator, and creative writer. He is the author of Walt Whitman and Shorter Fiction of Raja Rao, has co-authored and edited several anthologies, translated significant texts, and published extensively in reputed journals.