Call for Papers: Chinook: A Scholarly Journal of Romance Studies
This new journal is based in the French Language Centre of the Modern Languages and Linguistics Department at the University of Lethbridge in the heart of Western Canada. Please see home webpage: https://sites.ulethbridge.ca/chinook-journal/
Special Issue - Transitions and Transformations
Submission deadline: October 15, 2023
The Covid -19 pandemic has been with us for nearly three years and has occasioned dramatic change in our world. Indeed, Transitions and Transformations, past, present and future are top of both mind and shared experience. As the title of this call for journal articles suggests, we are seeking scholarly papers dealing with this topic and all that it entails in any form of Romance literature, theatre or film with papers accepted in English, French or Spanish.
Transitions involve changing position, form, movement and subsisting in different times. Transformation speaks to a profound modification of reality or ways of being and taking on an altered framework or shape. They may be passive or active, swift or slow, involve an onward process or even a reversal. While Transition does not often render the point of departure unrecognizable, Transformations can profoundly change appearances, ways of being and our understanding of the world.
The breadth of this topic lends itself to vast interpretation within literature, theater and film and strikes us as extremely current even as we process the pandemic and reconsider our understanding of race, gender, sexuality, and identity. Even as people long for permanence and stability, these are often fleeting and defined by their intermittence. In this issue, we seek to explore the nature of Transition and Transformation in a variety of literary, cinematic and cultural contexts as being, by definition, polymorphous, fluid and anything but immutable.
Among the open questions that might inspire your thoughts, we might ask, what does a Transition or Transformation entail and how does one capture or transmit what is at stake during this moment in which the moorings of our existence are unreliable or absent? Is there resolution or simply a pause? How do writers, poets, playwrights and film creators deal with the instability they depict or create in their works? What words, symbols, shots, scenes and devices do they use to communicate transition and transformation? Do they play to the visceral or cerebral aspect of those who consume their ideas and are their works received in a homogeneous way? Indeed, there is often a difference between the interpretations of an artistic work during the period in which it was created and subsequent years, as contexts change; how do shifting paradigms shape mutable interpretation?
Exploration of Transition and Transformation may touch on such areas as:
• Identity and gender
• Physical mutation
• Societal circumstances
• Paradigm shifts
• Theoretic changes in perspective
• Upheaval
• Technology
• Birth
• Disability
• Loss and grief
• Death and the afterlife or lack thereof
• Climate change
• Recycling, repossession, and recovery
• Reception theory
• Impermanence
• Deconstruction
Submissions of between 5000 and 7000 words must be sent as a word attachment to chinook.journal@uleth.ca and the article itself must contain no information that identifies the author. Submissions are to be accompanied, in the body of the email, by:
1. Name, Academic affiliation/institution and current position. Please indicate clearly if you are a graduate student or post-doctoral researcher.
2. 200-word abstract to be included with publication
3. Five key words for classification purposes
Submissions will be accepted in English, French or Spanish and must conform fully to the style sheet found here to be considered for publication.
Submissions will be accepted until July 30, 2023. They will be double-blind, peer reviewed and must not have been published or be under consideration for publication elsewhere. We will endeavour to inform you of a publication decision within 4-6 months of receiving your work.
Tabitha Spagnolo, PhD
Associate Professor of French
Editorial Director, Chinook: A Scholarly Journal of
Romance Studies
Assistant Director, French Language Centre
Chair, Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics
University of Lethbridge
Steven Urquhart, PhD
Associate Professor of French
Editorial Director, Chinook: A Scholarly Journal of
Romance Studies
Director, French Language Centre
Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics
University of Lethbridge