Call for Papers for Upcoming Issues
For more information, please contact
Lead Editor: Dr. Edmund Cueva (cuevae@uhd.edu)
Executive Editor: Dr. Ronald Weber (rweber@utep.edu)
Co-Editor: Dr. Terri Tomaszek (ttomaszek@davenport.edu)
Interdisciplinary Humanities: Upcoming Issues
Spring 2024: Designing our Future: Humanities-Centered Teaching, Learning, and Thinking in the 21st Century
Editors:
Katy Hanggi, Chair & Associate Professor, Dept. of Focused Inquiry, Virginia Commonwealth University
Julianna Grabianowski, Assistant Professor of Business, Doane University
Jared List, Associate Professor of Spanish, Doane University
What does the future hold for the humanities? Now, perhaps more than ever, the humanities have the opportunity and the urgency to innovate and adapt to the shifting dimensions of the twenty-first century. The humanities provide valuable habits of minds and skills that prepare students for their professional and personal lives. They teach us about the human condition: how we relate to each other; how we understand and work with differing perspectives; how we express ourselves; how we act ethically; and, how we better come to know ourselves. The disciplined university has traditionally organized the humanities within majors, minors, certificates, and general education courses. This structure creates silos where subjects are taught within a particular discipline with an occasional slippage into other disciplines. With the increasing corporatization of the university and the shrinking of higher education, the humanities have become subject to market forces and student demand, positioning academics to continually demonstrate the “value” of their program, degree, or course.
To push against this rigid structure, some colleges and universities are being creative and innovative with the humanities. Some are trying to infuse the humanities in places where traditionally they have been absent, and some are preconception and repackaging them. For example, how do the humanities give us a roadmap to determine the ethical boundaries of the non-human, cyborgian networks of knowledge generated by artificial intelligence? Or, how does the growing emphasis on incorporating multidisciplinary “real-world” problem-solving in general education courses demonstrate the necessity of humanities thinking?
Thus, this special issue which aims to highlight the strategies and unique ways in which we are adapting and responding to the shifts in higher education. What we note is rather than a focus on disciplinary content, we see an emerging emphasis on humanities thinking and its “real-world” application. We have obstacles to confront and many possibilities before us. For example, the pandemic has shown that higher education can pivot quickly, and with those changes, many of us are seeing the speed of change continue to increase amidst the challenges colleges and universities face. Do we continue to operate within and make small changes to the siloed structures that have defined the American university? Or can we imagine new configurations and ways of thinking about our disciplines, courses, and pedagogies that empower us to design our futures?
Accordingly, we invite scholars to contribute essays that engage with the following questions:
- How do we center the humanities in interdisciplinary work through meaningful and productive collaborations?
- How do we design humanities courses or programs that generate student interest and demonstrate their value?
- How do we survive the shrinking of higher education amidst an unknown future?
- In what ways can the humanities be positioned as central to institutions’ strategic priorities?
- How can we capitalize on higher education’s emphasis on experiential learning and career preparedness to strengthen our offerings?
- How can innovative pedagogies inform new approaches to the humanities?
- How can online learning be leveraged to extend the reach of what the humanities tell us how to relate to another?
- How does the growth of generative AI impact humanities education in productive, innovative ways?
- What are institutions’ creative responses to the obstacles of interdisciplinarity?
- How do we prepare graduate students for a higher education landscape that is unlikely to provide them with full-time employment in academia?
- How are community colleges drawing connections between the humanities and workforce readiness?
Proposal Submission Guidelines and Process
Submit essay proposals to futureofthehumanities@gmail.com by Friday, April 26, 2024, including the following information:
- Proposed essay title
- Abstract of 250 words
- Name(s) of author(s) and academic affiliation(s)
- Brief bio(s) (100 words of less) of author(s)
Essay Guidelines
Essays will meet the following norms:
- 5,000 to 7,000 words (including notes)
- double spaced, 12-points Times New Roman font, 1” fully-justified margins
- adheres to latest version of The Chicago Manual of Style
- Endnotes only (notes should show full citations followed by shortened citations for the same sources; single-spaced and 10-points Times New Roman font))
- no bibliography
- quotes over three lines in length need to be in a free-standing block of text with no quotation marks, indented on the left side of the block, and starting the quotation on a new line, with the entire quote indented 1/2 inch from the left margin while maintaining double-spacing;
- permissions to reprint images and illustrations, if any, are the responsibility of the author and should be arranged for and paid before submitting the article;
- sent electronically in MS Word file to editors
Important Dates and Timeline
- Essay proposals deadline: Friday, April 26, 2024
- Notification of accepted essay proposals: Friday, May 10, 2024
- Completed essay deadline: Friday, September 20, 2024
- Anticipated publication: Spring/Summer 2025
Fall 2023: Playable Culture: How Videogames Mirror, Critique, Build, and Unmake the World
Videogames are participatory, artificial dramas that occur in virtual space within some permutation of iterative time. As the newest addition to a wider textual ecology, they braid together the familiar tropes of existing narrative media with interactive mechanics so that players exist in a liminal zone straddling fiction and action. Videogame narratives are thus tied to player decision-making and physical input, and this narrative agency asks players to challenge existing paradigms and taxonomies: To reconsider such questions as who we are; where we are heading as individuals and as a species; and who we are relative to the natural and algorithmic structures in which we are enmeshed. Unlike other media for which we are interpreters and voyeurs, videogames ask us to participate in—and thus to co-author—the stories around us, individually and collectively. The essays in this special issue delve deeply into many of these complications, including our relationship to our bodies and our subjectivity; our relationship with time, space, mortality, and eternity; and what our human productions say about who we are and where we are heading.
Guest Editor: Saramanda Swigart - The College of San Mateo and San Francisco State University (sswigart1@sfsu.edu)
Abstract Word limit: 150-300 words
Deadline: March 31, 2024
Spring 2022: Special Performance edition of Interdisciplinary Humanities, “Performance in the Humanities”
Deadline: Oct 31, 2023
Word limit: 6000 words.
This special edition will investigate how performance shapes our experience of the humanities. In the four decades since NYU offered the first degree in “Performance Studies,” the advent of the internet and social media has changed the way we study, create, teach, learn, and identify ourselves. Performance forms and platforms have multiplied and facilitated one of the most contentious political cycles in American history, public upheavals demanding social justice, and new thresholds of mis and disinformation. How are these performance platforms shaping our experience and understanding of the world? With so much at stake for our students, this is the right time to reflect upon the role performance is playing in meaning-making. We invite papers that explore performance in all its manifestations. Send submissions to:
Kim Abunuwara - Humanities Program Director at Utah Valley University
Fall 2021: Myth and Art
Deadline for Submissions: March 31, 2022
Guest Editors: Edmund Cueva and Anna Tahinci
“Myth and Art” will explore the interrelation of the multiple functions of myth, literature, and art, as well as the interpretation of mythological narratives and their visual depictions. The main approach will be inter-textual and inter-media in nature and the contributors will grapple with and attempt to answer several questions: How do artists incorporate myths into their own works of art? How are the combinations of myth and art interpreted by ancient and modern day spectators? Are there differences and similarities in those interpretations? What factors (psychological, religious, political, financial, etc.) influenced the selection of the myth and the artistic medium? Although the overarching theme of this special issue is to determine why artists selected certain myths and rejected others, universal themes will be included within their historical, political, economic, sociological, conceptual, and aesthetic contexts. For example, understanding art in conjunction with literature will enable the contributors to write about the true meaning of humanity and how one maintains personal freedom and dignity in an increasingly technological world. In addition to making the readers of the special issue cognizant of the role of art and literature in their lives, they will also be motivated to think, to find new ways of problem solving, and to build a strategy for argumentation through myth and art.
Spring 2021: Special Issue: “Resisting White Supremacy in the African Diaspora: Moving Towards Liberation and Decolonization”
The months of May and June, 2020, saw unprecedented global protests against anti-Black racism and calls for a more equitable and just society that recognizes the humanity and lives of people of African descent. While these protests initially originated across the United States, protesters around the world quickly galvanized in support of these issues organizing events in a growing number of countries, including Canada, Mexico, Haiti, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, South Africa, Australia and Japan. This has been an important moment for Black scholars, activists, and cultural producers everywhere—as well as their friends and allies—to reflect not only on the crisis that has marked Black lives, but also on our future possibilities.
To facilitate these and other conversations, the Journal of Interdisciplinary Humanities invites papers on research pertaining to the theme of “Resisting White Supremacy in the African Diaspora: Moving Towards Liberation and Decolonization.” This timely special issue aims to include papers that capture forms of African descendants’ resistance against the tyranny of white supremacy across multiple continents. The scope of this issue is intended to be broad and inclusive of diverse methodologies, theories, and approaches. Possible topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Black art, literatures, music, media, and cultures
- Transnational activism/resistance in all its forms
- Black Psychology/Black self-care/Black joy
- Black subjectivities and experiences in academia
- Black Feminisms/Womanism
- Recovering Black histories/identities
- African religiosity and spirituality, contemporary and historical
- Black political participation and engagement
The deadline for complete papers (4000-6000 words) is January 1, 2021. Please send inquiries and submissions to guillorycry@uhd.edu. Decisions on publication will be made by March 31, 2021.
The guest editors of the special issue are Sarita Cannon (sncannon@sfsu.edu), Andrea Davis (aadavis@yorku.ca ), and Crystal Guillory ( guillorycry@uhd.edu ).
Fall 2020: Latinx Identities
The Journal of Interdisciplinary Humanities invites abstracts on the status of academic research and interest regarding individuals and communities that identify as Latinx, for consideration in a special issue focused on Latinx identities. This scope of this special issue is intended to be broad and inclusive of diverse methodologies, theories, and approaches. Below are listed some possible topics that may be addressed in the abstracts:
- Race and ethnicity
- Identity formation and the media
- Transnational activism/resistance and the media
- Movements and flows of people and Diaspora: local, regional, national, and international
- Technological and digital presences
- Media, citizenship, and belonging
- Immigration and Family
- Naming Latinx communities
- Latino subjectivities and experiences in academia
- Afro-Latinidades and Indigenous Latinidades / non-mestizo Latino identities
- Histories of race and racialization
- Cross-racial coalition-building
- Intra-group tensions, regionalism, ethno-nationalism
- Latino histories in the curriculum
- Latina feminisms
- Recovering Latino histories/identities
- Neoliberalism, immigration, and labor
- The end of the wet foot, dry foot policy
- Latinx religiosity and spirituality, contemporary and historical
- Latinx representation in the US Census
- Latinx political participation and engagement
- Urban planning and gentrification
- Latinx art, literature, music, media, and culture
The list included above is meant to give a sense of the types of scholarship that will be included in the special issue. The deadline for abstract submission is July 1, 2020 and decisions on publication will not be made until the full drafts are in and have been peer reviewed. The guest editors will invite full texts by July 31, 2020; the full drafts will be due on December 1, 2020. The review process for all submissions will be double-blind.
The abstracts should be 400 to 500 words in length. A brief autobiographical blurb should accompany the abstract.
The guest editors of this special issue are Dr. Bonnie Lucero (lucerobo@uhd.edu), Dr. Orquidea Morales (moraleso@oldwestbury.edu), and Dr. Ed Cueva (cuevae@uhd.edu). Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.
Spring 2020: Motherhood in the Arts and Humanities
Guest Editor: Lee Ann Westman
Deadline for submissions: March 1, 2020.
The spring 2020 issue of Interdisciplinary Humanities examines how mothers and motherhood has been represented in fine art, crafts, literature, music, theatre, and popular culture. We invite essays that consider motherhood archetypes in the arts, mothers of color in the arts, immigrant mothers in the arts, queer mothers in the arts, representations of surrogate mothers and mothers who have adopted, motherhood on social media, motherhood memoirs and blogs, representations of mothers in art and photography, the absent mother and/or the step-mother in film and television, and more. Inquiries and submissions should be sent to Lee Ann Westman at leeann.westman@rutgers.edu.
Fall 2019: Art, Activism and the Practice of Dissent
Guest Editors: Wendy Chase and Elijah Pritchett (Florida SouthWestern State College)
This edition of Interdisciplinary Humanities will explore the complex terrain of artistic dissent and activism as both a contemporary practice and a tradition. How is artistic dissent visualized, enacted, performed, disseminated? In what ways have artists responded--in various cultural contexts and from various subject positions--to authoritarianism, income inequality, environmental, racial and sexual injustice? How do artists, curators, and academics situate themselves within broader movements of dissent, activism and culture at large? How do modern strategies of dissent replicate, or diverge from, earlier approaches to artistic resistance? And ultimately, how effective is artistic dissent? We invite scholars, artists and activists to contribute papers that relate to these or related questions in the areas of art, activism and dissent. Inquiries and submissions should be sent to Wendy Chase at wendy.chase@fsw.edu and Elijah Pritchett at elijah.pritchett@fsw.ed
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