Journal of Literary Theory Vol. 15, No. 1 (2021)
Special Issue »The Relevance of Literary Studies«
Submission Deadline: 1 February 2021
Call for Articles
The question concerning the relevance of literary studies has gained a new fundamental significance in recent years. Not everywhere may the situation be as dramatic and its questioning as radical as in the US, where the renowned Chronicle of Higher Education already speaks of the ›collapse‹ of literary studies. In times of globalised digital knowledge societies, drastic cutbacks and redistribution of financial resources in education and research, increasing populism and, last but not least, the threat of a global climate catastrophe, literary studies worldwide, albeit with regional differences, are confronted with a massive loss of recognition and a constantly growing pressure to justify themselves. This situation provokes a debate in which crucial questions of literary theory are at the very centre – questions such as what literature is, what functions it fulfils and in what form an academic study of literary texts can be relevant. In this situation, The Journal of Literary Theory devotes an issue to theoretical and historical aspects of the debate on the »relevance of literary studies«.
Contributions to the issue may address the following or related problems and questions:
- What theoretical orientation should literary studies take in the 21st century?
- Which argumentative structures and axiological concepts come into play in the debate on the relevance of literary studies, and how should they be evaluated?
- In what way do assumptions about the functions of literature, about the methods of literary studies and about its relevance as a field of study correlate within the framework of individual literary theories? And which of these assumptions are tenable?
- How do new approaches in literary studies, such as digital philology or ecocriticism, relate to established ones? Do they complement one another or is there a form of competition?
- How are the stated ›crises‹ of literary studies to be described from a historical and sociological perspective?
- What structures characterise discussions on the relevance of literary studies in non-academic discourse and what implications do they have for the discourse within academia?
- How can the range of functions of literary studies be determined in comparison with competing academic subjects or disciplines?
Contributions from literary studies, but also from neighbouring disciplines (e.g. philosophy, history, or sociology) are welcome. Contributions may have the character of statements and position papers, in which case they need not document a research project and may be shorter in length. Contributions in which interpretations of individual literary texts or text corpora are presented can only be considered when there is a clearly recognizable systematic-theoretical interest.
Contributions should not exceed 50,000 characters in length and have to be submitted by 1 February 2021. Please submit your contribution electronically via our website www.jltonline.de under »Articles«.
Articles are chosen for publication by an international advisory board in a double-blind review process.
For further information about JLT and to view the submission guidelines, please visit www.jltonline.de/index.php/articles (»About JLT« and »For Authors«) or contact the editorial office at jlt@phil.uni-goettingen.de.
SUBMISSIONS THAT DO NOT FOCUS ON ONE OF OUR SPECIAL TOPICS CAN BE SUBMITTED CONTINUOUSLY VIA OUR WEBSITE.
JLT aims to publish work on fundamental issues in methodology and the construction of theories and concepts, as well as articles on particular literary theories. Case studies, i.e. studies on specific authors, works, or problems of literary history, are accepted only if they adopt a predominantly systematic perspective, contribute to the reconstruction of the history of literary theory, or pursue innovative methods. Moreover, the Journal of Literary Theory contains work reviewing and outlining trends of theoretical debates in literary theory and related disciplines.
Please contact the editorial office if you have further questions.
JLT - Journal of Literary Theory
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