Synthesis: An Anglophone Journal of Comparative Literary Studies
Due Date: 11-15-2021
This special issue of Synthesis aims to respond to the challenges that recent reflections on multispecies survival and coexistence pose for studies in literature, art, and critical theory today. In the past few decades, there has been a plethora of works in various media, such as literature, film, and visual and performing arts, that thematize human-animal interactions and interspecific transformations in a way that acknowledges more positive values in more-than-human worlds than before. This rising interest in literary and artistic works focusing on reconfigurations of human-animal interactions and boundaries seems to reflect a shift away from an anthropocentric and exclusive view of nonhuman animals toward a more inclusive view that values interdependence and interconnectedness between human and nonhuman animals.
This special issue invites contributions that offer new perspectives on multispecies entanglements in literary and artistic works and theories from different disciplines, genres, historical periods, and cultural traditions. At the heart of this approach is a commitment to careful and imaginative attention to the lives and worlds of others, whether human or nonhuman, grounded in diverse academic and creative practices, including literary studies, art, critical theory, natural sciences, and Indigenous knowledges.
Possible topics include:
• multispecies entanglements in literary and artistic works
• literary and artistic imaginings of more-than-human worlds
• theorizing more-than-human aesthetics across art and science
• critical anthropomorphism in literary and artistic works
• postanthropocentric critique of existing literary and aesthetic theory
• intersectionality and multispecies studies
• translation theory and multispecies studies
• Indigenous studies and multispecies studies
• the ethics of eating and multispecies entanglements
Abstracts of 250–300 words (and a brief bio) should be submitted to Mayako Murai at mayakomurai@me.com and synthesisjournal2008@gmail.com by 15 November 2021. Notification of acceptance will be delivered by 15 December 2021. The deadline for a manuscript (6,000–8,000 words) submission is 31 May 2022, and publication is scheduled for December 2022. All inquiries regarding this issue should be sent to the guest editor, Mayako Murai (mayakomurai@me.com). For more information, visit https://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/synthesis/index.