Journal of the Midwestern Modern Language Association: Special Spring Issue on Solidarity
Due Date: 01-15-2025
For this special spring issue of the Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, we are delving into the concept of solidarity. Solidarity requires that we share stories, seek connections, and engage in dialogue, but what does it do to alter the material conditions that structure our lives? The social fabric of our society favors individualism, and we may have not yet grasped—even as we reel from the effects of a global pandemic—that our survival, liberation, and futures are bound up together, and that the hard work of solidarity, coalition, mutual support and aid, and undoing systemic oppressions is the only way forward for any of us. There is power in calls for solidarity, but do these calls do more than produce a fleeting alliance? Is solidarity simply an earnest acknowledgement of harm, or is it a sufficient impetus to promote a passionate and principled fight? Shows of solidarity often bolster hope and raise awareness, but do they also result in lasting coalitions, cultural shifts in attitude, or genuine systemic improvement?
For this issue, we solicit work that explores understandings and practices of solidarity among individuals, groups, or academic disciplines—particularly when solidarity requires working across various lines of difference. We encourage examinations of actions of solidarity, dialogic encounters, or ways in which recognition of interdependent connections serves to strengthen, embolden, and encourage transformative effects. We likewise invite essays that question whether acts of solidarity are an effective means toward social change, as well as essays that complicate what “effective” might mean.
Articles should be between 7,000 and 10,000 words (including notes) and follow MLA style guidelines. Please direct all questions to the MMLA at mmla@luc.edu or to the guest editors of this issue, Kelly Kidder and Brynn Fitzsimmons.
Submission guidelines are available on the journal’s website. For more information, visit the journal’s calls for submissions page.
Submission Deadline: 15 January 2025.