Watermark, the annual, peer-reviewed scholarly journal published by English graduate students at California State University, Long Beach, is now seeking submissions for its twentieth volume. Our journal is dedicated to publishing original, critical, and theoretical papers concerned with literature of all genres and periods or current issues in the field of rhetoric and composition. We also accept submissions from other areas including but not limited to: Comparative World Literature, Medieval Studies, Translation Studies, and Gender & Women’s Studies. As this journal is intended to provide a forum for emerging voices, only graduate and undergraduate student work will be considered.

For the twentieth volume of the journal, to be published in late spring 2026, we are seeking papers reflecting the theme "Bodies." We invite rising scholars to submit works that consider this theme broadly, exploring how bodies are racialized, gendered, objectified, desired, standardized, policed, marginalized, liberated, and/or celebrated, either within the worlds of literary texts or by the cultural movements and institutions that shape our world today.

Potential topics may include but are not limited to:

• Displacement of and/or violence against individuals or groups
• Trauma of colonialism and/or capitalism inscribed on the body; body memory
• Commodification of bodies and/or physical labor
• Gender and gender performance
• Queer and trans bodies
• Critical disability studies in literature or rhetoric/composition
• Desire and sexuality; objectification of the body
• Rhetorical, social, and/or cultural construction of bodies; bodily rhetoric
• Motherhood and the reproductive body
• Symbolic and/or literal fragmentation of the body
• Corporeality, spirits and spectral bodies, haunting
• Monstrous bodies and body horror
• The spiritual body; connection between mind, body, and soul
• Posthuman, alien, and/or cyborg bodies
• Alcohol, drugs, and mind-altering substances; addiction
• Digital/online bodies

We will consider works of all topics, but thematically-related papers are encouraged.

The deadline to submit a paper for consideration is Monday, February 2nd, 2026. Please include a separate cover page with your name, phone number, email address, paper title, and short biography (no more than 2 sentences). All submissions should be between 6-20 pages, typed in current MLA format with standard 12-point font. Do not include your name in the essay document itself, as it will be read by a double-blind peer review panel. Email both attachments to csulbwatermarkjournal@gmail.com with the subject heading "Watermark 2026."