CFP - JLS/Configurations special issue 2

THE STATE OF THE UNIONS

What are the relations between literature, science and the arts within our field today? This special double issue marks a unique collaboration between the Journal of Literature and Science and Configurations. The first instalment – JLS 10:1 – was published this year and can be read here. We now invite short papers for the second issue, to be published in 2018.

The aim of the double issue is to enable scholars of all career-stages to debate the nature of the interdisciplinary relations of our field in short and sharp “position” papers of approximately 2000 words. We welcome papers which respond directly to pieces published in JLS 10:1, but we also preserve a more general list of suggested topics from our original call:

1. The meanings of interdisciplinarity in the field
2. The place of the study of literature and science within the academy
3. International variations or international synergies
4. Collaborative work between literature/arts and the scientific community
5. How do we (now) define "literature" in the dyad of literature and science?
6. The relationship between cultural theory and historicism in the field
7. How is literature and science evolving in relation to its own splintering (into animal studies, neuroscience, environmental studies, etc.)?
8. Speculations: what is the future of the field?
9. Reflections: where has the field most profited and where has it gone astray?

The editors also particularly welcome discussion of any of the following with respect to the above topics:

• teaching and pedagogical practice
• material culture and book history
• the corporatization of the university
• the current crisis in the humanities and/or economic pressures on the sciences

Submission information for the second issue:
Length of contribution: 2000 words
Deadline: December 16th, 2017

Send to: Rajani Sudan (rsudan@mail.smu.edu) & Will Tattersdill (w.j.tattersdill@bham.ac.uk)
(Decisions on inclusion in the second issue by February 2018)

CFP - Science Studies and the Blue Humanities

Configurations, the journal of SLSA (The Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts) is seeking submissions for a special issue on Science Studies and the Blue Humanities, edited by Stacy Alaimo. We are interested in essays, position papers, provocations, and artist statements that explore the significance of science studies for the development of the blue humanities. As oceans and bodies of fresh water increasingly become sites for environmentally-oriented arts and humanities scholarship, how can the emerging blue humanities best engage with the theories, questions, paradigms, and methods of science studies? How do questions of scale, temporality, materiality, and mediation emerge in aquatic zones and modes? How can literature, art, data visualization, and digital media best respond to the rapidly developing sciences of ocean acidification and climate change as well as the less publicized concerns such as the effect of military sonar on cetaceans? Work on postcolonial/decolonial science studies, Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), indigenous sciences, and citizen science especially welcome. Please submit 5,000-7,000 word essays; 3,000 word position papers or provocations; or 2,000 word artist statements (with one or two illustrations or a link to a digital work); to Stacy Alaimo, alaimo[at]uta.edu, by February 1, 2018, for consideration. All essays will be peer-reviewed, following the standard editorial procedures of Configurations.

CFP - Literature and Science: The State of the Unions

JLS/CONFIGURATIONS “DOUBLE ISSUE”: THE STATE OF THE UNIONS

What are the relations between literature, science and the arts within our field today? This special double issue marks a unique collaboration between the Journal of Literature and Science and Configurations. Across two years – 2017 in the JLS and 2018 in Configurations – we aim to enable scholars of all career-stages to debate the nature of the interdisciplinary relations of our field in short and sharp “position” papers of approximately 2000 words.

We therefore invite contributions that make an intervention in our thinking about the field of literature, science and arts. Potential topics for discussion include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. The meanings of interdisciplinarity in the field
2. The place of the study of literature and science within the academy
3. International variations or international synergies
4. Collaborative work between literature/arts and the scientific community
5. How do we (now) define "literature" in the dyad of literature and science?
6. The relationship between cultural theory and historicism in the field
7. How is literature and science evolving in relation to its own splintering (into animal studies, neuroscience, environmental studies, etc.)?
8. Speculations: what is the future of the field?
9. Reflections: where has the field most profited and where has it gone astray?

Submission information for the first issue:

• Length of contribution: 2000 words
• Deadline: December 16th, 2016
• Send to: Melissa Littlefield (mml@illinois.edu) and Martin Willis (willism8@cardiff.ac.uk)
• Publication: JLS 10.1 in June 2017
• Decisions on inclusion in the first issue by February 2017

NOTE: A further call for contributions for the second issue (Configurations, 2018) will go out in the Summer of 2017. It is to be hoped that the second issue will include, among other topics, reflections on the first set of published papers.