CFP: Special issue of Clio: A Journal of Literature, History, and the Philosophy of History on “Resistance in Arts and Literature: Learning from the Past”

Resistance is on everyone’s minds, but at Clio: A Journal of Literature, History, and the Philosophy of History, we’re also thinking about history and its lessons. What can the literature (and art) of political resistance in other times and places teach us? Can we theorize, taxonomize, or otherwise generalize lessons about political resistance from individuals’ artistic efforts to intervene in specific historical moments that are not our own? Resistance to political figures, ideas, policies, prevailing moral codes, and religious hegemony can appear in, among other forms:

• Satire
• Parody
• Complaint
• Allegory (including allegorical productions of plays, or film versions of fictional works, that originally had no such topical significance)
• Romans à clef
• Polemical works of fiction
• Performance art

We are looking for two types of submissions for this special issue:

Scholarly essays: Clio, an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal, publishes research at the intersections of the disciplines of literary studies, history, and philosophy of history, but for this special issue, we are expanding our focus to allow for attention to visual and performing arts as well. Essays should present well-focused, thoroughly researched arguments of 5000-9000 words, following The Chicago Manual of Style for citations and footnotes.

“Short Takes”: This section includes shorter (1500-2000 words), less formal essays targeting the same audience as scholarly articles in the journal, that is, scholars in the humanities with a strong interest in the connections between history and arts and literature. Whereas the full-length articles for this special issue will offer researched arguments on specific moments of literary or artistic resistance, “Short Takes” essays for the special issue will be more personal, focused on how historical reading you are doing for “your own work” is informing, complicating, or inspiring your reactions to the historical moment we are living in.

Please send your submission as an email attachment (in Word or rich text format) to clio@ipfw.edu by Monday, October 30, 2017. For more information about the journal, see ipfw.edu/clio.