The New Centennial Review: American Literary Naturalism in the World
Due Date: 10-30-2018
The New Centennial Review seeks submissions for a forthcoming special issue that aims to offer new perspectives on American literary naturalism in the context of global transformations from the nineteenth century to the present. Of particular interest are rereadings of canonical texts as well as less frequently discussed authors in comparative, transatlantic, postcolonial, and hemispheric approaches. Especially welcome are theoretically inflected essays that offer novel, provocative definitions of the genre as it has developed from the mid and late nineteenth century to the present.
Possible topics may include
- American naturalism in translation
- the international reputation and reception of American naturalist authors, poets, and dramatists, particularly in lesser known or less frequently discussed cultural contexts (e.g., Asia, South America, Central and Southern Europe, and the Middle East, among others)
- the social, economic, and political contribution of American naturalism to (post)modernity
- the interaction of American naturalism and other genres (e.g., realism, modernism, regionalism, journalism, melodrama, documentary, film, travel narratives), especially in less frequently addressed sociocultural contexts
- American naturalism and issues of transnational scope and interest (e.g., empire, globalization, immigration, climate change, diasporic studies, food studies, aging, among others)
- American naturalism and world literature: can we read American naturalism in the context of or as “world literature”? Can we rethink central thematic aspects and narrative patterns of American naturalism (e.g., determinism, evolution, nature, commodity culture, gender, race, and class) if we expand our range to different cultural, geographical, and geopolitical contexts?
- teaching American naturalism in non-American cultural and geographical contexts
Please send short bios and proposals of 300–500 words to Myrto Drizou (mdrizou@gmail.com) by 30 October 2018. Essays of 9,000 words will be due by December 2019 for publication in spring 2021.