Special Issue: Journal of Modern Periodical Studies: Wartime Periodicals

Co-edited by Sarah Cornish, Paula Derdiger, and Amanda Sigler

In her influential article “‘Strange Collisions’: Keywords Toward an Intermedial Periodical Studies,” Debra Rae Cohen observes, “wartime brought about … specific industry-wide pressures on publications,” including “shortages, censorship, altered readership demographics, changes in the content and address of advertising, [and] conscription of key personnel” (96). This special issue of the Journal of Modern Periodical Studies seeks to explore the relationship evoked by Cohen: How did the unique conditions of modern war, including but certainly not limited to the First and Second World Wars, alter periodical production, forms, and effects? Conversely, how did periodicals and their attendant institutions and infrastructure mediate modern war in particular ways? Given the global nature of modern war, we are especially open to examinations that are transnational or that extend beyond Anglo-America.

Send 500-word proposals by June 15, 2026 to Paula Derdiger: pderdige@d.umn.edu. Full manuscripts of 6,000-8,000 words will be due December 1, 2026 and will be sent out for peer review. The anticipated publication date is 2028.

Potential wartime topics may include but are not limited to:

·      Readerships and reading practices

·      Editorials, editorial practices, and commentary

·      Advertising

·      Politics

·      Censorship, language

·      Propaganda

·      Nationalism, national identity

·      The military: representations of, volunteerism, conscription, etc.

·      Materiality

·      Intermediality

·      Graphic art and design

·      Photography

·      News and journalism

·      Fiction, poetry, and drama

·      Identity: class, gender, race, etc.

·      History, historiography

·      Memorial

·      Nature and ecocriticism

·      Wartime finances, revenue, sponsorships, subscriptions