Contributions to special issues of journals and to books

(arranged in the chronological order of the deadlines for proposals)


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Philip Roth: Transatlantic Perspectives
Deadline for proposals: 1 December 2011

Abstracts due December 1, 2011 (500 words; please include contact info and short bio)
Final essays due by 10 August 2012 (4,000-5,000 words)
The editor of a contracted collection of essays titled Philip Roth: Transatlantic Perspectives is seeking proposals for additional contributions for the remaining sections.
Philip Roth is a highly literary and referential writer. The essays collected in this volume will offer an assessment of the conflicting influences on his work by his American and European forebears William Faulkner, Stephen Crane, Henry James, Franz Kafka, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Anton Chekov, Nikolai Gogol, the medieval English morality The Summoning of Everyman, among others.
From 1974 to 1989, Philip Roth was the General Editor of the Penguin Books paperback series "Writers from the Other Europe." Roth selected titles, commissioned introductions, and oversaw publication of Eastern European writers relatively unknown to American readers. His literary relationship with these writers, however, has elicited little scholarly attention to date. The essays assembled in this volume attempt to fill this void by emphasizing the importance of Roth’s series for the introduction of these authors as well as his creative dialog with their work. Several chapters explore his relationship with the work of the Yugoslav author Danilo Kiš, of the Czech novelists Milan Kundera, Ludvik Vaculik, Bohumil Hrabal, of the Polish writers Bruno Schulz, Jerzy Andrzejewski, Tadeusz Borowski, and the Hungarian writer György Konrád. A special attention will be paid to Roth’s interviews with Milan Kundera and Ivan Klíma.
Various studies have interpreted Roth's humor as typically Jewish. The essay dedicated to his comedy in this volume will explore it in its reference to the European tradition. Judicious writers have always practiced the art of contrast between the serious and the comic. The European novel began as a half-serious genre which merges both comedy and tragedy. In Tom Jones (1749), Fielding laid down the rules for the new genre defined as a "prosai-comi-epic writing." Like his European forbears, Roth pursues this art with great success.
The numerous references to literature in Roth's body of work show how important it is to establish the intellectual and cultural tradition in which he stands. This collection of essays will bring together a number of academic voices from different countries with the aim to reenact a dialog of critical readings with the texts and among themselves. The second goal of this book is to place Roth's fiction in a larger transnational context.
Keywords:
Philip Roth, Comparative literature, Intertextuality, Nikolai Gogol, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekov, "Writers from the Other Europe" series, Danilo Kiš, Milan Kundera, Bruno Schulz, Bohumil Hrabal, Ludvik Vaculik, György Konrád, Henry James, Franz Kafka.
Contribution:
The publication of a book of academic essays offering particularly a comparison between Philip Roth's fiction and his American and European forebears and contemporaries will fill an academic void and will meet the needs of readers both academic and general. The transnational perspective of the book, with critical readings by European and American scholars, provides another compelling argument.
Chapter proposals that have already been accepted include analyses of Roth's literary relationship with Sophocles's Oedipus the King, the medieval English morality The Summoning of Everyman, the American Renaissance, Stephen Crane, William Faulkner, Lionel Trilling, Ivan Klíma, Aharon Appelfeld, and J.M. Coetzee.
The editor is particularly interested in comparative essays on the following topics:
1. Philip Roth's comedy in its reference to the European tradition
2. Philip Roth and the nineteenth century Russian authors Gogol, Tolstoy and Chekhov
3. Philip Roth's “Writers from the Other Europe” series and its importance for his fiction
4. Danilo Kiš's A Tomb for Boris Davidovich, subtitled “seven chapters from the same story,” (1976, trans. 1980) and Philip Roth’s story/counterstory narrative technique in The Counterlife (1986)
5. Philip Roth's literary relation with Milan Kundera. Kundera's novels published in Roth's series; the forewords they wrote for each other; their conversations in London and Connecticut; Kundera's Art of the Novel; common themes and narrative techniques.
6. Philip Roth as editor of Bruno Schulz
7. Philip Roth as editor of the Czech writers Bohumil Hrabal, Milan Kundera, and Ludvik Vaculik
8. Henry James's The Aspern Papers (1888) and Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis (1915) as Intertexts for The Prague Orgy (1985)
The editor has specific expectations and will be happy to discuss these chapters with potential contributors.
In order to make the contributions as consistent as possible, the editor is fully available to be contacted by e-mail. Please direct your inquiries, proposed chapter abstract (500 words) and brief biographical sketch with institutional affiliation to Dr. Velichka D. Ivanova <velichka.ivanova@iufm.unistra.fr> by December 1, 2011.
Selected contributors will be informed by December 15, 2011. Completed chapters of 4,000-5,000 words (works cited and endnotes included) will be required by August 10, 2012. Essays should follow the MLA style format (3rd Edition) and US spelling rules.
(posted 1 October 2011)



Hellenism Unbound
Synthesis 6 (2013)
Deadline for proposals:  1 December 2011

http://www.enl.uoa.gr/synthesis/call.htm
In the last decade English, German, French, and American literary and cultural studies have experienced a Hellenic revival. Just a few examples of recent scholarship would include indigenous Hellenism, transnational Hellenism, connections between literary and archaeological excavations, women writers and Victorian Hellenism, Hellenism and postcolonialism, black classicism, and the history of race studies from the invention of "white, European" Greeks in the eighteenth century to the creation of American "white ethnics."
Indeed, Hellenism has flourished in so many directions that James Porter has recently characterized it as a concept "burdened with more meaning than it can coherently hold." The deconstruction it received in the 1990s left it even more unstable as a concept, but Hellenism is perhaps even more full of possibilities today.
Can Hellenism be unbound from the binary perceptions of East and West, civilization and barbarism? Or unbound from the holds of academic disciplines (Classics, English literature, archaeology); nations (Britain, Germany); genres (the travel essay, the lyric poem), to become something altogether new?
This issue is being conceptualized at a moment when the modern nation of Greece has been in the news, reaching far outside the bounds of academia. Will this change Hellenism? Is there a new Philhellenism arising or are old prejudices rekindled?
We invite contributions that engage with the imaginative and performative representations of Hellenism, from the late eighteenth century to the present. We are particularly interested in essays that unbind Hellenism from its usual holds, disciplinary, national, aesthetic, political, theoretical, or formal. 
Detailed proposals (800-1,000 words) for articles of 6,000-7,000 words and a short bio (up to 300 words), as well as all inquiries should be sent to both issue editors:
- Efterpi Mitsi <emitsi@enl.uoa.gr>
- and Amy Muse <ammuse@stthomas.edu>.
Deadlines:
1 December 2011: submission of abstracts
1 February 2012: notification of acceptance
1 October 2012: submission of articles
(posted 14 September 2011)


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Post-9/11 British and American Literature: Ten Years Later
Deadline for proposals: 1 December 2011

Editor: Kristine Miller, Associate Professor, Utah State University
During the ten years since 9/11, the political rhetoric and policies of a "War on Terror" have become part of daily life for the British and American public. This collection of essays will examine the variety of responses to 9/11 and its aftermath in British and American literature. While some writers have recreated or reconstructed the terrorist attacks directly in their work, others have chosen to represent the effects of those attacks more obliquely, without specific reference to 9/11.  This volume will present current scholarship about the ways in which literature has responded not only to the terrorist attacks themselves, but also to the media representation of those attacks, the resulting political policies and military action, and the continuing climate of war and terror in the United States and the United Kingdom.  The editor seeks both original, previously unpublished essays on post-9/11 British or American literature and interviews with literary writers working on this topic.
Potential topics (others welcome):
•    The work of a particular British or American writer
•    Comparative studies around a particular post-9/11 theme
•    Representations of other conflicts (WWII, for example)
•    Literature by or about British or American Muslims
•    Representations of the media
•    Women responding to 9/11
•    Representations of public rhetoric and/or private trauma
•    The 9/11 Commission Report as literary text
•    Graphic novels or comics after 9/11
•    Literary commemoration and memorialization
I have received initial interest in the volume from an academic press.
Please send abstracts of 250-300 words and a brief two-page CV by December 1, 2011 to Kristine Miller at: <post911literature@gmail.com>. 
Completed essays or interviews must be submitted by June 1, 2012.  These final submissions must be between 20 and 30 double-spaced pages long using 12-point font (including notes, bibliography, etc.), and they should follow MLA formatting guidelines.
(posted 14 September 2011)



Woman on Trial: The Construction of Gender in Plays about Women Accused of Crime
Deadline for proposals: 15 December 2011

Playwrights since the ancient Greeks have used the device of a trial to frame and highlight constructions of gender. This collection of essays will consider a diverse range of plays about accused women, from the Antigone of Sophocles to contemporary plays such as  Caryl Churchill's Vinegar Tom, to identify the ways they expose gender construction.
Essays will consider the type of accusation that prompts the trial, the perspectives of accused and accuser(s), the form of the trial, the type of evidence admitted, the outcome of the trial, and the position of the playwright regarding the outcome.  Essays considering plays in English or available in English translation, of any time period, by dramatists of any nationality or gender, will be welcomed.
Please send proposals by December 15, 2011 to co-editors:
- Amelia Howe Kritzer <ahkritzer@stthomas.edu>
- or Miriam Lὁpez Rodrἰguez <miriam@uma.es>.
(posted 17 June 2011)



Fashionable Queens:  Body - Power - Gender
Deadline for proposals: 15 December 2011

The present call for papers is a follow-up to the two-day symposium on Fashionable Queens: Body, Power Gender held at the University of Vienna in December 2010.
During the conference, speakers from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds presented their findings on the fashioning and representation of queen-like femininities through the centuries up to the present. Aiming at an exploration of fashion's hybrid nature between mediality and materiality, the presentations discussed fashion's socio-political implications of gender, class and power. In these presentations and the ensuing discussions, fashion was found to be a multifaceted subject with relevance for historical, political, sociological and cultural studies, as well as strong ties to gender studies.
http://www.univie.ac.at/fashionablequeens/
We cordially invite further theorists and practitioners in the field of fashion and fashion studies to submit abstracts of papers to be considered for inclusion in an international publication which will include contributions of speakers invited to the symposium.
The organizers of the symposium, Eva Flicker and Monika Seidl, will be the editors of the publication which will appear in English at Braumueller-Verlag, Vienna/Austria.
The schedule is the following;
• Call for Abstracts Deadline: December 15, 2011
• Response / Invitation for Contribution February 2012
• Deadline for full Papers: June 30, 2012
• Reviews, Feedbacks, Editorial work Deadline November 2012
• Publication Spring 2013
Please send an abstract with 500 words and information regarding your professional background until December 15, 2011 to:
• Eugenie Maria Theuer: <eugenie.theuer@univie.ac.at>
• or Valentin Freyler: <valentin.freyler@univie.ac.at>.
(posted 22 September 2011, updated 1 October 2011)


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Feminist and Women's Issues in Contemporary Irish Society
Études Irlandaises, Autumn 2012 issue
New extended deadline for proposals: 29 February 2012

Guest editors; Fiona McCann and Nathalie Sebbane.
The decline of second wave feminism in Western societies, the legacy of the Celtic Tiger and the emergence of a more liberal society, along with the transformation of the cultural and media landscape, have given rise to a new discourse that can tentatively be entitled postfeminist. Our understanding of this term requires the utmost prudence, however. The postfeminist current posits equality between men and women as a given and the feminist struggle as no longer relevant. However, according to Tasker and Negra (Interrogating Postfeminism: Gender and the Politics of Popular Culture), postfeminism is more a series of diffuse attitudes to be found within the media and related to second wave feminism's attachment to the past than an ideology or a form of activism. Nevertheless, it is not a backlash or a violent reaction against feminism since postfeminism acknowledges the complex relationships between culture, politics and feminism.
The fact remains, however, that one of the characteristics of postfeminism is its positing of a gender equality which is far from being experienced by Irish women, whether in relation to salaries, political representation or access to certain professions, among other issues. Moreover, the secularisation of Irish society and the unshackling of Catholic church discourse have enabled new discursive approaches to the body and sex to emerge. The new media landscape presents the image of a hypersexualised woman, while male discourse tends to converge more than ever towards essentialism and biological determinism. Irish women may rightly have felt liberated from the weight of religion, but don't they now have to struggle against the weight of a consumerist discourse  which threatens to annuhilate a fight for rights that they have never really obtained?
The Celtic Tiger and the economic boom which accompanied it provoked an unprecendented wave of female immigration, notably from Eastern Europe. An inevitable confrontation then emerged between Irish women in search of fulfillment and consumerism and a foreign population which was isolated and vulnerable and in search of a freedom that all too often boiled down  to psychological subservience and physical violence.
North of the border, the Good Friday Agreement and the period of relative peace which has ensued have enabled women and feminist movements to focus on issues pertaining directly to the amelioration of women's lives in a society which continues to founder on the bedrock of ethno-religious, economic and cultural divisions.
At a time when the Irish government has just rejected UN recommendations which invited Ireland to align its legislation on abortion with the rest of Europe, it seems as though patriarchy is still a force to be reckoned with.
In literature, the 'chick lit' phenomenon, which emerged in the 1990s (with Maeve Binchy as precursor), has been commercially very successful. However, although these novels testify to a desire to shed light on the lives of (Irish) women, they are far from receiving positive critical attention and are often reproached for their focus on consumerism and their reinforcement of a stereotypical vision of women. Other novelists, such as Edna O'Brien, Anne Enright or Deirdre Madden, to name but a few, have offered more nuanced representations of the relationship between women and the changes which have profoundly affected contemporary Irish society. Emma Donoghue and Anna Burns explore lesbianism and the consequences of the Troubles in an innovative and original style. In the theatre, Marina Carr and Christina Reid, among others, represent and thereby give visibility to a disillusioned working class and women who are violent and/or victims of violence. Poetry too has continued to be a privileged place to propose and challenge images of women since Seamus Heaney's 'The Wife's Tale' (1969) and Eavan Boland's 'Mise Éire' (1987) and the poetry of Medbh McGuckian, Sinead Morrissey, Leontia Flynn and Colette Bryce.
These observations, which are by no means exhaustive, invite authors to analyse (post)feminist issues in contemporary Irish society. Contributions could question the very nature of feminism, its evolution and its status in post Celtic Tiger Ireland; they could also tackle representations of women in the contemporary media, cultural and literary landscape. Authors are also invited to focus on the specificities of female immigration to Ireland over recent years. The question of women's bodies, how they are appropriated and violated is also relevant.
Articles of 36000 signs  should be sent before February 29th 2012 to both:
- Fiona McCann <mccannfiona@gmail.com>
- and Nathalie Sebbane <nathalie.sebbane@gmail.com>.
Articles must follow the stylesheet to be found at:
http://www.pur-editions.fr/pdf/consignes_etudes_irlandaises.pdf
(posted 15 October 2011, updated 2 February 2012)



Literary Theory and Media Change
Journal of Literary Theory, Vol. 6, No. 2 (2012)
Deadline for proposals: 15 January 2012

JLT - Journal of Literary Theory
Edited by Fotis Jannidis, Gerhard Lauer and Simone Winko
Published by De Gruyter
Vol. 6, No. 2, 2012
Literature is part of a media world that does not only change the physical aspects of reading by introducing e-books, audio books and other formats, but which links literature to the realms of movies, hypertexts, social media and other phenomena, where different hierarchies of aesthetic objects and their evaluation apply. How do these changes affect concepts and theories of literature?
Papers are welcome that systematically analyze the changing attitudes, terms and concepts of literary theory provoked by recent (or not so recent) shifts in (digital) media environments.
Possible topics could include, but are not limited to the discussion of changes in reading habits, possibilities opened up to research by digital corpora, aspects of media competition, convergence, and combination in relation to literature, aspects of the history of media or literature studies.
Contributions should not exceed 50,000 characters in length and have to be submitted until January 15th, 2012.
Articles are chosen for publication by an international advisory board in a double-blind review process.
Please submit your contribution electronically via our website http://www.jltonline.de under 'Articles'.
For further information about JLT and to view the submission guidelines, please visit http://www.jltonline.de or contact the editorial office at <jlt@phil.uni-goettingen.de>.
Submissions that do not focus on one of our special topics can be submitted continuously via our website.
(posted 8 February 2011)







The Irish short story in the 21st century
Journal of the Short Story in English
Deadline for proposals: 30 January 2012

The Journal of the Short Story in English intends to publish a special issue on the Irish short story in the 21st century and therefore invites new and original contributions.
Ireland has produced some of the world's most celebrated short story writers -- and continues to do so. The genre has traditionally been considered as the national art form and regarded as central to the Irish canon. 20th century Irish criticism of the genre was often made on the basis of Sean O'Faolain and Frank O'Connor’s brilliant essays.
Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the Irish short story has greatly evolved since these publications.
As a result, contributors are invited to reconsider the genre and question its renewal, reappraise tradition, reflect on contemporary techniques and read today’s short stories with new critical perspectives.
This collection of essays is intended to combine close textual analyses with theoretically informed readings to expound the dynamics of the contemporary Irish short story.
Possible topics might include (but are not limited to) social change, reception, comparative studies, literary influences, international connections…
The essays, written in English, will focus on Irish men and women’s short stories published since 2000.
All proposals will be considered but, for the sake of balance, the volume cannot include too many papers on the same writer or the same book. So, should the situation arise, contributors may be asked to choose a different text.
Submissions are expected to include the title of the paper, a 150-word abstract, a short contributor’s note with name, e-mail address, postal address and institutional affiliation.
They can be addressed before 30 January 2012 to:
- the guest editor, Bertrand Cardin <bertrand.cardin@unicaen.fr>
- and the co-editors:
- Linda Collinge <linda.collinge@univ-angers.fr>
- and Emmanuel Vernadakis <emmanuel.vernadakis@univ-angers.fr>).
(posted 16 December 2011)
 


The Child in Neo-Victorian Arts and Discourse: 
Renegotiating Nineteenth-Century Concepts of Childhood


Special Issue of Neo-Victorian Studies


Deadline for proposals: 31 January 2012

Neo-Victorianism has become a major trend in contemporary literature and culture. Novels, motion pictures, documentaries and TV series have all contributed to the persistent re-imagination of the nineteenth century. While neo-Victorianism in fiction and film has sparked off a lively academic industry, its impact on children’s literature and contemporary discourses on childhood has not yet been fully addressed. The Victorians were obsessed with the Romantic ideal of the innocent child of nature, an innocence that was thought to be perennially at risk; witness the centrality of the child victim in Victorian melodrama and the astonishing popularity of orphan narratives. Victorian constructions of childhood were also intimately linked to empire. Pauper children were frequently orientalised as 'street Arabs', while the indigenous inhabitants of the colonies were often portrayed as children, imposing various forms of maternalism and paternalism upon the coloniser. Both pauper children at the metropolitan centre and indigenous children at the outskirts of empire were frequently construed as orphans, even if their parents were still alive. Orphan narratives framed trafficking in children from the outskirts of empire to the centre and vice versa, as pauper children were sent abroad to the settler colonies as cheap labour hands, while ‘orphans’ in the colonies were removed from their parents in order to be raised at missionary homes or by Anglo-parents who could not conceive themselves.


This special issue of Neo-Victorian Studies will explore how Victorian constructions of childhood are re-mediated and renegotiated in contemporary arts and discourse, from neo-Victorian children’s literature and/or fiction featuring children, heritage film and television, the media, social policy making and family politics, to present-day legal frameworks. In particular, how do revisionary fiction and other contemporary cultural discourses for/about children and/or young adults rejuvenate, modify, and assist us in re-thinking the Victorians and associated themes of temporality, cross-generational continuities, and urgent social issues such as child labour, trafficking and paedophilia?


Contributions, both academic articles and creative pieces, are invited on (but not limited to) the following topics:

• rewrites and film adaptations of Victorian children's/young adults' classics and/or child-focused fictions (The Little Princess, Jane Eyre, David Copperfield, The Turn of the Screw, etc.)

• re-imaginings of stock child characters from Victorian melodrama and other popular genres (orphans, street Arabs, innocent angels, feral and criminal children, etc.)

• re-inventions of Victorian narrative and dramatic genres for children (e.g. the adventure story, fairytale, moral tract, Bildungsroman, puppet play, and pantomime)

• adaptations of neo-Victorian genres for juvenile audiences (cf. steampunk or graphic novels for children and adolescents)

• continuities/discontinuities between contemporary narratives about adoption and migration and nineteenth-century orphan narratives

• imagined child readers/viewers

• child illness/death; children and medicine

• neo-Victorian vs. neo-Edwardian children’s fiction and other art forms

• the child victim in socio-legal and political discourse

• colonial vs. postcolonial representations of the child


Please address enquiries and expressions of interest by 31st January 2012, including a 200 word proposal with draft bibliography and brief biographical details, to the guest editors:
- Claudia Nelson at <claudia_nelson@tamu.edu>
- and Anne Morey at <amorey@tamu.edu>
Completed articles and/or creative pieces will be due 1st April 2012 and should be sent via email to the guest editors, with a copy to <neovictorianstudies@swansea.ac.uk>.
Please consult the NVS website http://www.neovictorianstudies.com for further submission guidelines.
(posted 2 November 2011)



Dalit Literatures - In, Out and Beyond
Series PoCoPages,  Coll. "Horizons anglophones", Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée
Deadline for proposals: 31 January 2012

The history of Dalit literature can be traced back to centuries. But Dalit literary/cultural expressions were never taken into consideration due to the hegemonic nature of the field of literary production. The emergence of Dalit as a political category and identity coincide with the emergence of Dalit literature. Current researches by scholars reveal the widespread character of Dalit writings in various parts of India. Research also shows that Dalit literature had long before acquired a distinct language through its heterogeneous and plurivocal character which challenged dominant literary canons. Dalit literature acquired a recognizable identity towards the middle of the twentieth century. The term ‘Dalit literature’ -- 'Dalit' meaning oppressed, broken and downtrodden -- came into use officially in 1958 at the first conference on Dalit literature in Mumbai. The emergence of the Dalit Panthers (a political organisation formed in 1972 in Mahrastra) is a significant moment in the history of Dalit literature which was furthered by various political/literary movements across India.
Dalit literature for a long time was disregarded and not taken seriously in the literary circles. The publication of translations from modern Marathi literature entitled Poisoned Bread edited by Arjun Dangle with a prefatory note by Gail Omvedt had already sparked debates in the literary circles. Under the impulsion of such academics as Arun Prabha Mukherjee (York University, Toronto) who translated Omprakash Valmiki's Joothan (1997) into English in 2003 and wrote an introduction to it, the initial reluctance to accept new literary genres by the dominant literary discourses, has, over time, given way to wider acceptance and circulation of Dalit literature in and outside India. The recent volume on Dalit writings from two south Indian states No Alphabet in Sight edited by Susie Tharu and K. Satyanarayana, opens up a new debate on the long history of Dalit literature and its current prominence in the contemporary scene of literature and politics. It also shows how Dalit literature moves beyond the usual discourses of literary modernity.
The debate between Gandhi and Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891-1956), one of India’s foremost revolutionaries, an untouchable and a fierce critic of Gandhi, is a major event in Indian history. Ambedkar famously said 'Mahatma, I have no country' Fictionists like Avinash Dolas and others have explored the depth of this theme. This discussion between Ambedkar and Gandhi has provoked debates on nationhood and Hindu religion. The well-known book by D.R. Nagaraj, The Flaming Feet, is a case in point. Although untouchability was abolished with the 1950 Constitution of India (drafted by Ambedkar), Ambedkar's experiences continue to be the lot of India's 170 million Dalits today.
Dalit literature in its initial stages (and in a broader sense, even today) was identified as specific protests directed against everyday humiliations that individual dalits and Dalits as a community face. In this context, contradictions between Marxism and progressive literary movements (which works on larger abstractions) with Dalit literature (and Dalit movements) have to be taken into serious consideration. Most of the debates around/about Dalit Literature have failed to adequately acknowledge the new vocabulary of imagination and aesthetical sensibility produced by these literatures. Dalit literature cannot be reduced to an engagement with victimhood. In the hands of poets like S. Joseph, it has spawned new literary cannons by disturbing the usual language available in the pre-existing canonical literary circles. Dalit Literature today has established itself as a new mode of literary/aesthetic imagination and writing.
The fact that John Berger, Arundhati Roy and Joe Sacco saluted the publication of the graphic novel Bhimayana : Experiences of Untouchability (Delhi: Navayana, 2011), may be the sign that something is changing in the context of Dalit literatures. The visual, the literary and the political dimensions closely intertwine in this graphic biography of Ambedkar. The artists Durgabai Vyam and Subhash Vyam, together with Srividya Natarajan and S. Anand for the story, crafted a book that has broken new ground, not least because it did so in a controversial way. The publication of Bhimayana could be a signal that Dalit cultures are edging out of the restricted areas where they were formerly circumscribed. This could also be an opportunity to examine Dalit expression and literatures in a renewed way and from different perspectives.
Far from concentrating on the historical, social and economic circumstances of the untouchable communities that are described by Dalit writers or non-Dalit writers (such as Raja Rao, Arundhati Roy or Rohinton Mistry), the editors of the projected volume of PoCoPages encourage contributions that will foreground the following issues:
- the linguistic questions linked to translation from regional Indian languages into English and other international languages; more generally the question of accessibility; questions linked to sub-Indian and international distribution; magazines, books and the web;
- the attention Dalit literatures are getting outside the limited circles of activists in India and outside India; more generally the question of reception; Dalit literature and its readership; who writes for whom;
- the generic questions linked to the literary choices made by the writers : poetry, short story, novel, autobiography, biography, graphic novels, photo-journalism, recorded oral narratives, theatre, etc; the poetics and politics involved in such literary choices;
- the gender question: male and female writers; male and female readers; the relationship between caste and gender, in the specific context of the Dalits;
- the relationship between Dalit literature and Dalit politics, including the impact of literature on  the social situations faced by the untouchables; the transformative value of such literature and on what grounds;
- the contact zones between Adivasi literature and Dalit literature;
- the marginalisation of minority Dalit literature (Christian, Muslim, Sikh Dalit literature for instance);
- the resistance that Dalit literature is facing from dominant literary groups and the legitimacy it is slowly being granted, or not;
- the pitfalls of literary fashion and stereotypes;
- Dalit literatures and the film industry (film adaptations, documentaries, etc);
- the relationship between Dalit literatures and the Indian literary canon; the relationship between Dalit literatures and other literatures (postcolonial, African-American, subaltern and trauma literatures, etc); intertextuality within Dalit literatures;
- the relationship between Marxism and Dalit literature, specifically in terms of how the questions of class and caste overlap and conflict; the perspective of Indian Marxists;
- Dalit self-writings and their specificities; narrative voice and perspective;
- last but not least, the problematics of inside and outside: writing on or from a Dalit perspective; the academic perspective and the non-academic perspective; the perspective of Indians, and Indian writers, of the diaspora; the Indian and the non-Indian perspective; bridging the western and the eastern perspective on Dalit writing.
PoCoPages is a peer-reviewed series in the collection "Horizons anglophones" published by the Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée (Pulm). India and the Diasporic Imagination is the latest volume (2011).
http://www.pulm.fr/index.php/collections/horizons-anglophones/pocopages.html
General Editor : Dr Judith Misrahi-Barak (Paul-Valéry University - Montpellier 3, France).
This volume, to be published in 2013, will be co-edited with Joshil K. Abraham (Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi).
Please submit a 300-word abstract with a short bio (200 words maximum) by January 31, 2012:
- Joshil K. Abraham <joshilabraham@gmail.com>
- to and to Dr Judith Misrahi-Barak <judith.misrahi-barak@univ-montp3.fr>.
If the preliminary proposal is accepted, final essays (33,000 characters, spaces and footnotes included, bibliography on top) will be due by May 31, 2012.
(posted 22 November 2011)



Katherine Mansfield and the Fantastic
Volume 4 of Katherine Mansfield Studies
Deadline for proposals: 1 February 2012

Katherine Mansfield Studies is the peer-reviewed journal of the Katherine Mansfield Society
Submissions are sought on the following:
- Critical articles on the theme of this issue: 'Katherine Mansfield and the Fantastic'
- Creative pieces -- poetry and prose with a connection to Katherine Mansfield
- Book reviews with a connection to Katherine Mansfield
This fourth edition of Katherine Mansfield Studies, 'Katherine Mansfield and the Fantastic', will investigate an unexpectedly rich vein within her modernist and experimental prose. The editors welcome submissions that explore the fantastic in Mansfield’s work. Suggested topics might include (but are not limited to):
- Literary gothic motifs and tropes including twinning, mirroring, ghosting and metamorphoses in Mansfield's work
- Mansfield developments of fairytale
- Mansfield's exploration and expression/representation of the conscious and unconscious mind
- The grotesque in Mansfield
- Mansfield's work in relation to that of contemporaries such as Charlotte Mew, Jean Rhys, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Virginia Woolf, May Sarton, Edith Wharton, Henry James and James Joyce, which reveal uses of the fantastic, haunting and the gothic
- Connections with later writers who also use the fantastic, mythic and literary gothic such as New Zealanders Keri Hulme, Janet Frame and Patricia Grace
- Mansfield and the Uncanny
- Mansfield and Postmodernism
The Guest Editor for this Volume will be Professor Gina Wisker from the University of Brighton, together with co-editors Dr Gerri Kimber and Dr Sue Reid.
Patron: Dame Jacqueline Wilson
ARTICLES
Submissions of between 5000–7000 words (inclusive of endnotes), should be emailed in Word format to the Guest Editor for this volume: Professor Gina Wisker <kms@katherinemansfieldsociety.org>.
Please also send:
- a 50 word bio-sketch.
- a brief abstract (150 words) summarising your article.
- 5 or 6 keywords.
CREATIVE WRITING
Pieces of creative writing on the theme of Katherine Mansfield -- poetry, short stories (no more than 3000 words), etc, should be sent to the editors, accompanied by a 50 word bio-sketch: <kms@katherinemansfieldsociety.org>.
BOOK REVIEWS
Book reviews of 500-600 words for single books and 900-1200 words for two or more books should be sent to the Reviews Editors, Dr Kathryn Simpson and Dr Melinda Harvey, accompanied by a 50 word bio-sketch: <kms@katherinemansfieldsociety.org>.
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: 1 February 2012
A detailed style guide is available from the Katherine Mansfield Society website:
http://www.katherinemansfieldsociety.org/the-katherine-mansfield-studies-journal/
(posted 30 March 2011)



Beckett in Post-War France
Issue 3 of Limit(e) Beckett
Deadline for submissions: 14 February 2012

The intellectual, social and political climate of post-war France was explosive. From Charles de Gaulle to the May '68 protests, from Bataille and Blanchot to existentialismand the difficult post-war reception of Heidegger, from the painful legacy of the war to the slow trickle of revelations about the Holocaust, from the Nouveau Roman and Oulipo to the Nouveau Réalisme and Fluxus, it was a period of experimentation and despair, in which the desire for renewal was balanced against the impossibility of moving beyond the recent past. This is the climate in which Samuel Beckett wrote his most famous works, the mature fiction and drama that would win him the Nobel Prize in 1969 and establish his reputation as one of the most influential writers of this period. Nonetheless, Beckett's relationship to the political, intellectual and artistic climate of the period remains under-explored.
The publication of the second volume of Beckett’s letters, covering the period from 1941 to 1956, offers an exciting opportunity to revisit this relationship in the light of the new evidence it provides about his relationships, his thinking, even his handling of practical and administrative tasks. To coincide with their publication, Limit(e) Beckett seeks abstracts for articles that situate Beckett in relation to any aspect of post-war France, with or without reference to the letters. We are looking for papers that explore both the historical conditions under which Beckett wrote, and the conditions that determine how the texts were read. We encourage contributions from a variety of perspectives, from the archival to the theoretical, from the biographical to the critical, from the comparative to the contextual. Suggestions for topics include but are not limited to:
- Beckett's relationship to post-war French thought;
- Beckett's engagement with post-war French politics, up to and including May '68;
- the residue of war in Beckett’s fiction and plays;
- re-evaluations of Beckett's relationship to existentialism and 'absurdism';
- Beckett and the Holocaust;
- Beckett's relationship to the Paris art scene, and to new developments in the arts;
- the production history of the plays in the context of the French theatre world;
- translation, self-translation, the turn to French, and the politics of language in post-war France;
- Beckett's importance for structuralism, post-structuralism and ‘French theory’;
- Beckett's relationship to post-war French literature;
- the rejection of Ireland and/or its persistence in his work.
Submissions should be sent to limitebeckett@gmail.com by 14 February, 2012. Articles should conform to the guidelines set out on our website, and will be subject to peer review.
Please note that Limit(e) Beckett is now also accepting unthemed submissions on any scholarly topic relating to Beckett. Completed articles should be sent to <limitebeckett@gmail.com>. There is no deadline for these, and articles will be reviewed as they are received, with accepted submissions published in the next available issue.
For further information or to read the journal, please visit http://limitebeckett.parissorbonne.fr
(posted 11 November 2011)



The Other Dickens: Neo-Victorian Appropriation and Adaptation
A specia issue of Journal of Neo-Victorian Studies
Deadline for proposals: 29 February 2012

As part of the bicentenary celebrations of Dickens's birth, the editors of a special issue of Neo-Victorian Studies on 'The Other Dickens: Neo-Victorian Appropriation and Adaptation' invite contributors to consider the 'other' Dickens -- those aspects of Dickens's life and work that have been the subject of recent revision, reappraisal, and transformation in contemporary culture. The special issue will aim to critically assess our persisting fascination with this canonical Victorian figure and, more generally, the 'Dickensian' cultural legacy of the Victorian age in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We would especially welcome papers and creative pieces which address the continued influence of Dickens on neo-Victorian studies, in literature, in bio-fiction, as well as in film and television adaptations of his novels.
Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:
- Dickens and adaptation/re-writings
- Dickens and the legacies of Empire
- International/trans-cultural Dickens in the age of globalisation
- Dickens and contemporary politics (social reforms, the 'Big Society', philanthropy)
- Dickens and twenty-first-century material/commodity culture and consumerism
- Dickens and revisions of gender in the private and public spheres
- Dickens and neo-Victorian nostalgia
- Gothicised Dickens/Dickens's ghosts
- Dickens and Dickens's women in bio-fiction
- Dickens and (self-)performance/performing the past
Please send a 500 word proposal for a 6,000-8,000 word chapter to the guest editors:
- Elodie Rousselot <Elodie.Rousselot@port.ac.uk>
- and Charlotte Boyce <charlotte.boyce@port.ac.uk>
Please send your proposals by 29 February 2012, adding a short biographical note.
Completed articles and/or creative pieces will be due by 15 July 2012 and should be sent as a Word.doc attachment via email to the guest editors, with a copy to <neovictorianstudies@swansea.ac.uk>.
Please consult the NVS website http://www.neovictorianstudies.com for further submission guidelines.
(posted 7 November 2011)



Shakespeare and the Great War
A special issue of Shakespeare, the journal of the British Shakespeare Association
Deadline for contributions: 31 March 2012

Shakespeare, the journal of the British Shakespeare Association, is inviting contributions for a special issue on 'Shakespeare and the Great War'. It is to be published in 2014, coinciding with the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War. Articles of up to 6,000 words might address, but are by no means limited to, the following issues:
* Wartime performances and/or editions of Shakespeare's plays
* Critical commentary on Shakespeare produced during WWI
* The uses of Shakespeare in pro- and anti-war propaganda
* 'Fighting over Shakespeare' - contesting the ownership of the Bard by any of the countries participating in the war
* WWI Shakespeare adaptations and appropriations
* Shakespearean quotations during WWI
* Using Shakespeare's texts to express and comprehend experiences of the war
* The effects of WWI on subsequent developments within Shakespeare studies and the Shakespeare industry
In accordance with the journal's policy, all contributions will be peer reviewed by at least two anonymous readers prior to being accepted. Shakespeare uses the MLA style as defined in the latest edition of Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (New York: The Modern Language Association).
For more details, please see the 'Instructions for Authors' section on http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/shakespeare
http://www.emintelligencer.org.uk/2011/03/23/cfp-shakespeare-and-the-great-war
Please e-mail your contributions and/or any queries to the guest editor, Monika Smialkowska <monika.smialkowska@unn.ac.uk>, by 31 March 2012.
(posted 11 May 2011)


ESSE has opened a FaceBook page.
This will have no effect upon the ESSE website, which will continue exactly as it is.
The new FaceBook page is an additional link between ESSE members. It can be used to post information that cannot be fitted into the existing columns of the ESSE website.



Doubt and Faith
Shakespeare Jahrbuch 2013
Deadline for proposals: 31 March 2012

The 2013 volume of Shakespeare Jahrbuch will be a special issue devoted to "Doubt and Faith".
Shakespeare's theatre is founded in doubt and it is for this reason that it can negotiate questions of faith in a particularly ambiguous way. Irrespective of what religious beliefs or rituals are put on stage, they are always conditional and subject to the rules of playacting. Early modern theatre never presupposes absolute certainty but always creates new realities, which are authorized and questioned at the same time. There is thus a complex tension in the ways in which early modern plays address 'the last things', i.e. questions concerning the afterlife, God and religion. In a time of thorough change, of religious upheavals and realignments, Shakespeare's plays are subject to cultural tensions that only intensify these concerns. When even a savage like Caliban swears to his God, this begs the questions whose gods are invited by the theatre or whether the early modern stage is increasingly emptied of the divine.
The editorial board invites essays on the following questions:
- Knowledge, doubt and faith in Shakespeare’s plays
- Theatre and ritual: performances of faith in the early modern age
- Theatre and theatrum mundi in the early modern age
- God and director on the early modern stage
- Religious contacts and conflicts on the early modern stage
- The faith of the ‘other’ in Shakespearean drama
- Religion in contemporary Shakespeare productions and adaptations
- …
Shakespeare Jahrbuch, the Yearbook of the German Shakespeare Society, is a peer-reviewed journal. It offers contributions in German and English, scholarly articles, an extensive section of book reviews, and reports on Shakespeare productions in the German-speaking world. It also documents the activities of the Shakespeare Society.
Papers to be published in the Shakespeare Jahrbuch should be formatted according to our style sheet, which can be downloaded from the Society's website at: http://shakespeare-gesellschaft.de/en/jahrbuch/note-on-submission.html
Please send your manuscripts (5-6,000 words) to the editor by 31March 2012.
Prof. Dr. Sabine Schülting <jahrbuch@shakespeare-gesellschaft.de>
Freie Universität Berlin
Institut für Englische Philologie
Habelschwerdter Allee 45
D-14195 Berlin
Phone: +49-30-838 72346
(posted 16 Septembr 2011)



The West in Asia/Asia in the West
Deadline for proposals: 31 March 2012

In her seminal 1993 volume entitled Stella d’India, temi imperiali britannici, modelli di rappresentazione dell’India (republished in English in 2011 under the title Star of India, Imperial Themes, The Other Face of English Literature, Modes of Representing the Subcontinent), Italian scholar Lina Unali laid the foundation for the development of literary and critical studies focusing on the relationship between Asia and the West. Workshops organized and chaired at international conferences such as EAAS, AIHA and MESEA; lectures and papers delivered in numerous countries (particularly in India and China); the creation of the "Asia and the West" international conference (held annually at the University of Rome, Tor Vergata since 2000); the establishment of the intercultural studies center Asia and the West/Asia e Occidente, at the same university; as well as many groundbreaking publications in this area are just a few of the contributions that Lina Unali has made to this transnational and transdisciplinary field of academic inquiry.
This volume of essays, which is currently under consideration by a major university press, takes Professor Unali's work as its point of departure while celebrating her scholarly activity and intellectual engagement over the years.
The co-editors seek submissions (full-length manuscripts of between 5,000 and 7,000 words in Chicago Manual footnotes  -- not parenthetical -- style) that take Lina Unali's writings, the "transnational turn" in Asian Studies, and/or the interstitial material between "Asia and the West" as their focus (submissions can also include those which consider Professor Unali’s contributions to other fields such Italian and Anglophone Studies). We also seek submissions on topics including, but not limited, to:
• The relationship between British and/or American writers and Asia
• Western travellers to Asia
• Eastern travellers to the West
• Transnational interlopers (historic/literary figures who embody the transnational tapestry)
• The construction of “the Orient”
• New trends and developments in transnational studies
• The politics of Asian American Studies
• Asian American/Asian British literature and the “canon”
• Asian American and Asian British digital culture and the Internet
• Bilingualism and biculturalism in the Asian American and Asian British contexts
• The Asian American and Asian British immigrant experience
• Italian American immigrants and their oral histories
• Italian American women writers
• Hybridity, diaspora and borders
• Fusion/Fragmentation/Intertextuality
• (Post)colonial Studies
• Asian American/Asian British Arts (visual, theatrical, cultural, oral traditions, etc.)
• Asian American/Asian British life-writing (incl. travel writing, journals, diaries, and memoirs)
• Translation/interpretation/adaptation
• Identity, representation, race, class and gender
• Globalization, citizenship, mobility
• Teaching the West in Asia/Asia in the West
Abstracts (max. 700 words) and one-page bios should be emailed by March 31, 2012 as Microsoft Word attachments to both:
- Dr Elisabetta Marino <marino@lettere.uniroma2.it>
- and Dr Danfer Emin Tunc <tanfer.emin@gmail.com> .
After the preliminary acceptance of abstracts, contributors will be asked to submit manuscripts by August 15, 2012. We reserve the right to reject full-text submissions that do not meet editorial standards, and anticipate a Fall/Winter 2013 publication date.
(posted 26 November 2011)



ESSE has opened a FaceBook page.
This will have no effect upon the ESSE website, which will continue exactly as it is.
The new FaceBook page is an additional link between ESSE members. It can be used to post information that cannot be fitted into the existing columns of the ESSE website.



Rachel Cusk
E-REA, March 2013
Deadline for proposals: 30 April 2012

Following the successful one-day conference on contemporary British writer Rachel Cusk held at the University of Rennes 2, France, the on-line journal E-REA has agreed to publish a selection of the papers that were given in a special edition on Rachel Cusk, which will be edited by Nicolas Boileau (University of Provence), Clare Hanson (University of Southampton) and Maria Tang (University of Rennes 2) and published in March 2013. It is proposed to expand the issue by inviting scholars working on contemporary British women(s fiction to offer further articles on aspects of Rachel Cusk's work not touched on during the conference, specifically on Cusk's early work prior to the publication of Arlington Park (2006), the novel which made her name in France.
Papers given during the conference dealt largely, although not exclusively, with Arlington Park, broaching such topics as: the representation of space and place in the novel; the Woolfian intertext; spectral presences and the gothic dimension of the novel. Others dealt with maternal subjectivity and Beauvoirean influences on Cusk's work, while two turned to Cusk's non-fiction writing in order to explore the interface between fiction and travel-writing (The Last Supper), and the uses of autobiography (A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother). Most of these papers looked at how to locate Cusk's work in the context of contemporary British fiction, some arguing that she is a neo-modernist: elaboration of that category will be welcomed.
Articles are invited on any of Cusk's publications prior to or following Arlington Park, including her early exploration of the short-story cycle (first used in The Lucky Ones, 2004, but also deployed, arguably, in Arlington Park and The Bradshaw Variations). Other possible lines of inquiry might concern: the treatment of time as a theme and structuring device in the fiction; the depiction of rurality (The Country Life, 1997; In the Fold, 2005); gender and/ or class, especially in relation to education (Saving Agnes, 1993; The Temporary, 1995) and, more broadly speaking, the representation of the female characters. Many of her novels are shot through with a sense of danger that seems to threaten the plot and the fabric of the text,  inviting us to reflect on what this looming menace means both in thematic and aesthetic terms. Cusk's style, both praised and derided for its virtuosity, could also be examined: is it mannerism? Or can it be said to be part of a new approach to the representation of the minutiae of everyday life?Is her chiselled prose a solution or a hindrance to the expression or representation of reality? Articles considering any of these questions and/ or comparing Cusk's works with other contemporary British women writers, such as Hilary Mantel, Jenny Diski and Joanna Kavenna, to name but a few, would also be welcomed.
Abstracts and titles should be sent to Nicolas Boileau <nicolas.boileau@univ-provence.fr> by April 30th, 2012.
Articles of between 6000-8000 words will then have to be submitted before 30th September 2012.
The journal's house-rules for presentation can be consulted at http://erea.revues.org/344
(posted 26 September 2012)


Have you looked up the ESSE FaceBook page recently?  It carries miscellaneous information, announcements of new books published, links to interesting articles, etc. Share your findings with colleagues throughout Europe!



Postcommunism - postcolonialism's other
Word and Text - A Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics
Deadline for proposals: 15 April 2012

Journal website: http://jlsl.upg-ploiesti.ro
General editor: Dr. Laurent Milesi
If Postcommunism designates the period of political and economic transition from communism to democracy after the dramatic events of 1989 (the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Velvet Revolution in Prague and the Romanian revolution, to name but a few) period which was dominated by the rejection of Soviet communism legacies and associated institutions, symbols, vocabularies, socialist realism, postcolonialism is rooted in capitalist ideology.
Despite Derrida's timely Specters of Marx and the spate of critical activity that it generated, as well as Stéphane Courtois' The Black Book of Communism, whose responses varied from highly enthusiastic support to bitter criticism, and Eric Hobsbawn's or Vladimir Tismăneanu's accounts on an epoch that was to leave permanent traces in world history, out of all post’s, postcommunism as such has not received the theoretical attention it would have otherwise deserved. Meant to go beyond communism’s blurring of all differences and equalitarianism, postcommunism attempted to meet postcolonialism in precisely that point where it (de)constructs the Other through a politics of difference. Postcommunist countries felt both European and in the periphery of it and have been aware of having awaken to capitalism somewhat too late and somewhat embedded in a reservoir of what the Westerners perceive as lacks of civilization.
This issue invites contributions on considering postcommunism postcolonialism’s other, extending the concept of 'otherness' from the strictly philosophical meaning conceived by Hegel in his famous parable of the master-slave dialectic, and later made much more popular by Levinas' "infinite other" or Lacan's articulating the other with symbolic order to othering as the unconscious (Freud), the silent, the unsaid, insanity (Blanchot) to the political, social, cultural other, the other of language.
Prompting contributors to engage their own colonized otherness, the issue seeks contributions that will broaden our understanding of cultures of post-Communist societies through a variety of cultural and literary theories that proved to be of particular relevance to the study of the contemporary age (post-modernism, post-colonial theory, diaspora and globalisation.) The issue will attempt to rekindle the militant relevance and political involvement of cultural studies in the new context of postcommunist Europe from a range of perspectives that include (but are not limited to):
• Marginalized cultures
• Cultures of lies
• Looking Westwards since 1989
• Tradition, nostalgia and belated communism in post 1989 national identities
• Cultural Diaspora and de-territorialization
• Cultural contradictions of post-communism
• Derrida’s Reflections on Post1989 Europe (The Other Heading)
• Postcommunist literatures
• The emergence of new linguistic and discursive paradigms
• Postcommunism in translation
• Postcommunism in the West: around Le retour de Marx
We welcome interdisciplinary approaches, ranging across critical theory, literary studies, cultural studies, general and applied linguistics as well as other disciplines in the humanities. Contributors are advised to follow the journal's submission guidelines and stylesheet.
The deadline for article submissions is 15 April 2012.
The articles should be sent to as attachments to <wordandtext2011@gmail.com>.
All submitted articles will be peer-reviewed.
Accepted articles will be returned for post-review revisions by 1 May and are expected back in their final version by 7 May.
(posted 22 October 2011)



Eroticislm and its Discontents
Issue no. 3 of Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture
Deadline for proposals: 31 May 2012

Call for Articles, Reviews and Interviews
Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture is published by the University of Łodź in Poland.
Editor-in-chief: Dorota Filipczak
Issue Editor for issue N. 3: Jadwiga Uchman
Unlike sexuality, which is regarded rather as a biological function of humans, eroticism is generally seen as part of culture and as such can be associated with artistic and intellectual activity. Moreover, it can be seen as being more naturally connected with the mind and imagination and less with the body and its functions. Eroticism may therefore be represented in a stylised, artificial, literary and artistic way as well as assume more religious, ritualistic or sublime forms.
With this in mind, the editors of the third issue of Text Matters encourage submissions in the areas of drama of all periods and cultures as well as medieval literature that explore the ways in which various genres operate within a specific field of reference in which eroticism acquires a distinct shape and function.
Among other things, Text Matters No. 3 seeks to investigate the roles and functions of erotic imagery and representation viewed as subversive, eruptive and disquieting elements in culture that dismantle and redefine established notions and formulated identities. Submissions such as articles, interviews and book reviews related to this theme are cordially invited. Please see the style sheet for details: http://ia.uni.lodz.pl/text-matters
The deadline for submissions is May 31st, 2012.
The electronic version should be emailed to <text.matters@uni.lodz.pl>.
Editors invite potential contributors to contact them about their proposals at:
- <dorfil@uni.lodz.pl>
- and <jagodauchman@wp.pl>.
(posted 18 January 2012)



Re-writing Scotland, vol. 2: History
Études écossaises, issue 16, 2013
Deadline for proposals: 1 June 2012

Editors : David Leishman, Véronique Molinari, Pierre Morère
fter a first volume on the theme of re-writing dedicated to the field of literature and the arts, the upcoming issue of Études écossaises (ELLUG, Université Stendhal-Grenoble 3) proposes to focus on Scottish history for a further exploration of the functions and manifestations of the act of re-writing. The aim of this issue will therefore be to study the dynamics affecting canonical interpretations of Scottish society and politics to analyse how the establishment, entrenchment or erosion of such discourses operates through time.
Historical events, speeches or figures that have taken on canonical status, conceptions of national and class identity, questions of political representation, gender identity, religious thinking, founding myths, -- History itself -- can all be subject to the act of re-writing as new representations are offered up and the national doxa unsettled. The process itself, according to the nature of its object, may involve various dynamics: that of revision, re-emergence and renewal, or contrastingly, that of disillusion, demythification or forgetting, as a once dominant discourse loses pertinence over time. Thus studies may focus equally on the emergence of new discourses in Scottish history as on the sedimentation and sifting that leads to previous representations being covered over by the new.
Studies focusing on the themes of re-interpretation, re-emergence, or -- at more pragmatic level -- of construction and reconstruction, should offer wide scope for investigation for specialists of history, sociology, cultural studies, politics or philosophy to question the canonical discourses that have shaped Scottish history and society throughout the centuries. While analyzing the motivations and the mechanisms behind such transformations, particular attention will be paid to the context in which such changes take place. Topics may include, but are not limited to, issues such as the representation of Scottishness in response to changing socio-economic conditions, Nationalism, Unionism, devolution and constitutional change, linguistic policy, Gaelic identity and Highland society, Protestantism, the Scottish diaspora.
Papers (5,000-8,000 words) may be submitted in French or in English.
A brief proposal should be sent by 1st June 2012 to the email address below.
The deadline for finished papers is 1st October 2012.
Before submission, the general typographical guidelines for ELLUG publications should be consulted at:
http://w3.u-grenoble3.fr/ellug/index.html/fileadmin/template/ellug/Telechargements/Recommandations_2011_.pdf
In addition, prospective authors are requested to contact the email address below for further submission and publication details for Études écossaises: <david.leishman@u-grenoble3.fr>.
(posted 26 November 2011)







Recalling War: The Literature and Language of the Two World Wars in Britain
5th issue of Zeszyty Naukowe Instytutu Neofilologii i Komunikacji Społecznej
Deadline for submitting articles: 30 June 2012

We would like to announce that the 5th issue of Zeszyty Naukowe Instytutu Neofilologii i Komunikacji Społecznej (Journal of Literary and Linguistic Studies published by the Institute of English, German and Communication Studies, Koszalin University of Technology, Poland)  is currently being prepared for publication in 2012.
The title of the present issue is Recalling War: The Literature and Language of the Two World Wars in Britain.
The 2012 issue will concentrate on literary and linguistic aspects of the two world wars in Britain. Papers are invited to discuss a wide range of issues concerning the wars, either in poetry, novels, autobiographical works, media, official language, slang, etc.
For editorial details, please visit http://in.tu.koszalin.pl/index.php?id=zeszyt&dir=strony/zeszyty/notes
The final date for submitting articles is 30th June 2012.
Please send the electronic version to:
- prof. Jacek Fabiszak <fabiszak@amu.edu.pl>
- or dr Wojciech Klepuszewski <wojciech.klepuszewski@tu.koszalin.pl>.
Download the cover of issue 5.
(posted 11 November 2011)



All the Vs of Life - Conflicts and Controversies in Tony Harrison's Works

E-Lit International Journal of British Literature and Culture
New extended deadline for proposals: 30 June 2012

We invite papers concerning Harrison's poetry as well as his plays with the particular focus being twofold. First, the critical analysis of the theme of conflict in all its social, political, cultural and literary manifestations. Second, the discussion of the reaction to his works, which has often been perceived as controversial.
All papers will be peer-reviewed.
The deadline for submission is 30 June 2012 (new extended deadline)
More details: http://www.e-litjournal.com
Contact:
- Prof. Stephen Butler <stephen.butler@tu.koszalin.pl>
- Dr Wojciech Klepuszewski <wojciech.klepuszewski@tu.koszalin.pl>
(posted 10 February 2011, updated 1 July 2011, updated 15 November 2011)



Global Hardy
Literature Compass
Deadline for proposals: 1 July 2012

"The point of cross-cultural comparison is not to reify the reassuring opposition between two distinct identities but to force each side to ask: could we understand ourselves otherwise in the other’s terms?" (908) Hon Lam, Ling and Dahlia Porter. “Hybrid Commodities, Gendered Aesthetics, and the Challenge of Cross-Cultural Comparison: A Response to Moretti's "The Novel: History and Theory"" 7.9 (2010)

Literature Compass invites submissions of articles of 5,000 words (excluding notes and bibliography) to a cluster/special issue on Global Hardy. Submissions will be peer reviewed through Literature Compass's normal scholarly channels. The issue will develop a historical perspective and, in keeping with the Global Circulation Project (http://literature-compass.com/global-circulation-project/), it will focus on areas outside Europe and North America. Exploring the reception and circulation of Hardy it will look at ways in which Hardy's ideas have been received, and circulated, globally - Japan, for example, has a Hardy society older than Britain's - asking why Hardy has been, or is, so popular outside Europe and North America.
Submissions should be sent to Dr Angelique Richardson at <A.Richardson@exeter.ac.uk> by 1st July 2012, for final submission in December 2012.
The Global Circulation Project is a global map and dialogue on how key Anglophone works, authors, genres, and literary movements have been translated, received, imitated/mimicked, adapted, or syncretised outside Britain, Europe, and North America, and, conversely, how key works from outside these areas have been translated, received, imitated/mimicked, adapted, or syncretised within Anglophone literary traditions. It asks, what forms of intertextuality, reception, etc. are generated through cultural contact? Guo Ting's article on Byron in China:  http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-4113.2010.00727.x/full (contact <A.Richardson@exeter.ac.uk> for a copy if you are not at a subscribing institution) offers an example of the scope of the Global Circulation project.
All submissions must include full scholarly apparatus for notes (we follow MLA style, with in-text references and a Works Cited). We apologize in advance to the scholarly community that at this time we are only able to consider submissions and responses in English; this may change as the dialogue and network grow.
Because our intellectual priority is to promote a global circulation of ideas in the present as well as to study such circulations in the past, we ask our readers to read differently, to welcome the difficulty of reading unfamiliar inflections and entering unfamiliar critical frames. For, even as articles are published in English, we practice an editorial policy flexible enough to foster communication across languages and scholarly traditions. Our goal is to allow differences in style and approach to be heard, as much as is possible, across linguistic and cultural differences, so as to generate new international dialogues.
More information on Literature Compass can be found here: http://literature-compass.com/
(posted 22 June 2011)


Permanently Valid Calls for Papers



The Brontës and the Idea of Influence
A thematic dossier in the “Writers, writings” section of LISA e-journal

In March 2007, Stevie Davies, Patricia Duncker and Michele Roberts gathered around Patsy Stoneman at Haworth in Yorkshire to talk about the influence that the Brontës had had on their evolutions as authors, and more generally, about the source of inspiration that the most famous family of writers in England could represent. Patsy Stoneman had already tackled the topic by publishing a book entitled The Brontë Influence in 2004 with the help of Charmian Knight. The issue of LISA e-journal "Re-Writing Jane Eyre: Jane Eyre, Past and Present" is further evidence of Charlotte Brontë's influence on the writers of the following decades or centuries. So far, these studies have been quite limited and this field of research, "the Brontë influence", offers a wide range of possible developments.
Moreover, if the four authors' poetry and novels have already been the object of numerous studies, there is much left to write about the influences which were exerted on the Brontës, whether religious, literary, philosophical or cultural. Taking account of the context of  a work is often a good way of understanding the issues underlying a text: the path taken by the Brontës, their journeys, their stays abroad, the books they read, etc. could prove to be very enlightening. Besides these external factors, one could also consider the interactions between the three sisters, who wrote in the same room and who read passages from their works aloud.
A final aspect to identify and study could be the influences which are exerted within the Brontës' works themselves. How can one account for the progress of the heroes and heroines? How is the influence that characters have on one another expressed? What role does nature play in the destiny of characters? Which other elements intervene in the novels?
This dossier devoted to the Brontës intends to analyse the works through the perspective of influence and three different fields of research can thus be considered:
-    influences on the Brontës
-    the idea of influence in the Brontës’ works
-    the Brontë influence on the writers of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.
Please send your proposals (one A4 page maximum) to Dr. Élise Ouvrard <ouvrard_elise@hotmail.com>.
Accepted articles will be published in the thematic dossier "The Brontës and the Idea of Influence" on the website of LISA e-journal: http://lisa.revues.org/index424.html
(posted 10 January 2008, updated 3 November 2010)



Controversy: Literary Studies and Ethics
JLT-Journal of Literary Theory online

Submissions are continuously accepted.
Are literary scholars and critics supposed to voice their view on normative questions within their academic writings? How far should world views, political opinions and evaluations enter into the scholarly and critical work with literary texts? Is it even possible to exclude such judgements from literary studies? How and why do different traditions of literary studies treat these problems divergently?
Submissions are expected to refer to previous contributions to this controversy by Peter J. Rabinowitz and Marshall W. Gregory, which can be found here:
http://www.jltonline.de/index.php/articles/article/view/254/775 and here:
http://www.jltonline.de/index.php/articles/article/view/287/879.
Please contact the editorial office for further details at <jlt@phil.uni-goettingen.de>.
(posted 10 February 2011)