08/05/2020
Call for Contributions to ESQ Special Issue:
Nineteenth-Century Scholars Respond to A Twenty-First Century Pandemic
ESQ, the oldest professional journal encompassing nineteenth-century literature, has long been concerned with how writers and scholars in the 1800s dealt with their era’s most pressing problems. How did nineteenth-century writers’ historical moments affect their worldviews, and how did they portray those worldviews in their fiction, non-fiction, and poetry? As scholars and teachers, we are undergoing an unprecedented time in the twenty-first century academy. ESQ invites contributions that explore how nineteenth-century literature helps us engage with our current moment. What comparisons from the past can we make to today? Which ones seem less important than in the pre-pandemic era?
For this special issue, ESQ invites scholars to consider how their researching and teaching nineteenth-century literature and culture is changing because of the pandemic. What texts ought we consider, or reconsider, and why? Which ones might be particularly productive in the current classroom environment? What texts worked well or not so well as most of us moved to teaching remotely? What do we wish we had known in planning our Spring 2020 syllabi that might offer guidance as we move forward? What should this learning experience teach us? In general, what should we consider as we move forward in this age of covid-19 and its aftermath?
Finally, we invite essays that consider the other professional work that nineteenth-century scholars attend to—the running of author societies, disseminating ideas via conferences, archival research, digital humanities projects, and any other work not listed—whose goals and activities were affected by the pandemic. What challenges did we encounter, and how can (and should) scholars and teachers move forward affirmatively and constructively? We hope that contributors will help us understand the opportunities that this crisis moment might generate.
We lean into the nebulousness of this call for essays because of a lucid recognition that our current period marks a time of extreme uncertainty. We want to encourage creativity and original modes of thinking and writing in whatever way seems appropriate. As such, we invite theoretical, creative, and pedagogical submissions of 4-20 pages reacting to this call and this distinct time. We believe that nineteenth-century scholars, with their knowledge of the past, possess valuable frameworks for considering our future as scholars, teachers, and citizens. This special issue will be released as 67.1, ESQ’s first issue of 2021.
Please send proposals of 250-500 words, indicating the contribution’s anticipated length, and a brief CV to the special issue’s guest editor (and ESQ’s Year in Conferences Coordinator) LuElla D’Amico at [email protected] by August 10th. We will make decisions for which proposals will be forwarded for peer review within two weeks; contributions will be due by October 15th and reviewed promptly, with feedback expected by December 1st. Feel free to send any queries about topic or scope. We look forward to reading how those in our field are responding and thinking about this historical moment.
