To investigate how various disciplines respond to Barbara Kingsolver’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Demon Copperhead, editors Megan Krupa and Thomas Alan Holmes solicit chapter proposals for an edited collection of scholarly essays. Set in southwest Virginia during the opioid crisis, Kingsolver’s novel converses with Dickens’ David Copperfield, providing commentary about relevant social influences ranging from the global economy and international extractive industries to domestic social services, sports fandom, education, and family structure. Kingsolver’sDemon Copperhead Across the Disciplines invites scholars from fields invested in these and other related areas to offer their perspectives of Kingsolver’s critique of our times through Demon’s first-person account of his experiences.

 We encourage a range of interdisciplinary approaches, and we are especially interested in work that examines

• Educational representation in the novel
• The role of high school sports 
• Nature and/or environmental studies
• Aspects and respresentations of social work
• Discourses in poltical science and/or power dynamics

Please direct 750-word proposals (noting that they should balance conceptual explanation with their application to the novel itself) as well as inquiries to krupam@etsu.edu and holmest@etsu.edu. Proposals should include a brief five to ten-item list of sources.

 The deadline for proposal submissions is August 1, 2026.