Call for Papers
Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture (ISSN: 1547-4348) is an innovative online cultural studies journal dedicated to fostering an intellectual community composed of scholars and their audience, granting them all the ability to share thoughts and opinions on the most important and influential work in contemporary interdisciplinary studies. Reconstruction publishes three Themed Issues and one Open Issue per year.
Send Open Issue submissions (year round) to: reconstruction.submissions_at_gmail.com and submissions for Themed Issues to the appropriate editors listed on the site at www.reconstruction.eserver.org
Reconstruction also accepts proposal for special issue editors and topics. Reconstruction is indexed in the MLA International Bibliography.
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The following is a constantly updated collection of CFPs for currently planned Open and Themed Issues, including contact information. Please refer to our Submissions page for general submission guidelines and peer review process. Potential Guest Editors, please view our FAQs page.
CFP Categories: African-American, American, cultural studies and historical approaches, ethnicity and national identity, film and television, gender studies and sexuality, general announcements, humanities, computing and the internet, interdisciplinary, journals and collections of essays, popular culture, rhetoric and composition, science and culture, theory, twentieth century and beyond.
NOTE: Reconstruction CFPs are regularly posted to the following listservs: H-Net, CULTSTUD-L, UPenn, Anthropology Matters, e-NASS, intertheory, and CACS. To suggest another listserv for our CFP postings, please contact the Managing Editor.
ISSUE |
EDITORS / CONTACT |
ABSTRACT |
| Reconstruction 16.3: Game Studies and Determinism | Marc Ouellette, Managing Editor, Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture E-mail: reconstruction.managing_at_gmail.com |
Oct. 1 2015 |
| Reconstruction 17.1: In-Between Spaces: Interstices and Borders of Identity | Edited by Amanda Gradisek and Ron Scott E-mail: |
Dec 1, 2015 |
| Open Issues | Alan Clinton, Submissions Editor, Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture E-mail: reconstruction.submissions_at_gmail.com |
Ongoing |
| Themed Issue (Guest Edited) | Marc Ouellette, Managing Editor, Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture E-mail: reconstruction.managing_at_gmail.com |
Ongoing |
Reconstruction 16.3: Game Studies and Determinism
(Abstracts 250-500 words, due Oct. 1 2015, completed papers by Feb 1, 2016)
Even though it might be considered a relatively new discipline, Game Studies has galvanized around a readily recognizable set of determinisms. Indeed, the necessity of differentiating between video and computer games instantiates highlights an important pair. Conversely, it might be argued that a set of determinisms have galvanized around Game Studies, not least of which is the ongoing duel of the ludology and narratology dichotomies. Similarly, the mere existence of the debate regarding whether or not games constitute art seems to invoke the potential for invocations of auteur theory, if not definitions of art and aesthetics. Yet, as the “gamergate” fiasco reveals, familiar categories like player and genre break down under the weight of the determinism contained within. Likewise, the complete elision of queer perspectives, readings and subjectivities exists in and through the almost symbiotic relationship between an admittedly sexist industry and an academy eager to criticize it through the equally deterministic sex role theory that continues to dominate academic considerations of gender. Thus, the editors seek papers that explore/explode the various determinisms that have arisen in, through and about game studies. There would be a particular welcome and/or interest in papers from emerging scholars and/or scholars who would like to take the opportunity the revisit their own work or works that have become part of the lexical orthodoxy. Scholars would be invited to consider particular games, game genres and game elements as well as more theoretical considerations, particularly with regard to tertiary or other modes of game related production that have arisen and were not envisioned and/or encompassed when the canonical modes of reading were established as such.
Suggested topics include:
- demythologizing or deconstructing deterministic criticism in Game Studies
- beyond sex role theory
- exclusions of gender performativity and play
- the industry of critical commonplaces
- the empire (building) of gamification tropes
- outside and/or before the "magic circle"
- paratexts and other texts "outside" the game
- beyond gamers
- Game Studies and disciplinary occlusions
- disciplinary occlusions and Game Studies
- win or lose
Please send abstracts and queries to Marc Ouellette at reconstruction.managing@gmail.com with the subject heading “Game Studies and Determinism” by Oct. 1, 2015.
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Reconstruction 17.1, In-Between Spaces: Interstices and Borders of Identity
(Abstracts 250-500 words due Dec 1, 2015, full papers due Mar 1, 2016) Edited by Amanda Gradisek and Ron Scott.
This issue invites collaborative essays that consider what Homi Bhabba calls the “move away from the singularities of ‘class’ and gender’ as primary conceptual and organizational categories” in The Location of Culture. Destabilizing these constructs, once considered monolithic, results in what Bhabba calls “‘in-between’ spaces” that “provide the terrain for elaborating strategies of selfhood.” These interstitial spaces “initiate new signs of identity, and innovative sites of collaboration, and contestation, in the act of defining the idea of society itself.” The work of this issue is to interrogate the nature of these in-between spaces, the borders that may or may not divide foundational categories of identity, and the way in which these inter-spaces allow for the generation of new ideas and theorizations of established categories.
Authors need not only consider the theoretical perspective of Bhabba for this issue. Spivak’s consideration of the subaltern, Anzaldua’s approach to the culture of the border, and Hayles’s analysis of the post-human all rely on some fundamental conceptions of identity governed by borders of some kind--be they literal, conceptual, theoretical, or categorical. In any case, articles should interrogate the nature of these borders, their permeability, the effects of passing through them, and the ways in which these constructions affect the categories of identity they organize. Pieces should examine the ways in which seemingly monolithic categories of identity create interstitial or liminal spaces that allow for resistance against constructs of power.
Taking this formulation as its starting point, we propose an issue will be composed of essays that model this methodology in practice as well as ideology; essays should be the work of collaborators who work in different periods, genres, or disciplines, and bring together aesthetic representations that seem, at first glance, based on binary and negative definition. Possible approaches might include the investigation of canonical literature, philosophy, theory, or art with popular film, contemporary cultural issues, science fiction novels, or horror genres. By modeling the theoretical lens through the methodology of the issue itself, we hope to explore the nature of different sort of interstitial ideas through collaborative and multifaceted analysis.
One article is a collaboration between Ron Scott (rhetoric and compositions) and Amanda Gradisek (American literature), bringing together canonical Harlem with the popular genre the zombie film. This article considers the nature of passing through strikingly different texts to interrogate an established literary and historical practice through an interdisciplinary, contemporary, and prismatic approach. Examining categorical identity in this piece in the Harlem Renaissance and a a modern zombie film shows how the trope of passing creates in between spaces that allow both the zombies who pass and the blacks who pass to undermine the system. This issue will particularly focus on kinds of borders between categories, which the methodology will also reflect.
Possible collaborative topics may include but are not limited to canonical texts in context with contemporary popular texts, or an examination of a canonical text from different historical periods in relation to more current to specific popular cultural texts, films, music, art, or digital texts. Whatever texts authors choose, articles should address specific concepts of liminal spaces in relation to formation of identities and larger scale, hierarchical social structures.
Articles with tentative titles and contributors:
“Reconceiving and Redeeming the Self: Passing, the Harlem Renaissance, and Zombies,” by Amanda R. Gradisek (Walsh University) Ron Scott (Walsh University)
“Surf's Up: Thomas Pynchon at the Edge of American Culture,” by Charlie Bertsch (University of Arizona) Sam Schwartz (Oregon State University)
Please send abstracts by Dec. 1 to Amanda Gradisek (AGradisek@walsh.edu) and Ron Scott (rscott@walsh.edu). Submissions may take the form of scholarly articles (5-10,000 words), multimedia submissions, book reviews and any other format you feel may be interesting for an online cultural studies journal.
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Contact: Reconstruction Submissions Editor
We are continually accepting submissions for upcoming Open Issues, and can promise a prompt reply.
Submissions may be created from a variety of perspectives, including, but not limited to: geography, ethnography, cultural studies, folklore, architecture, history, sociology, linguistics, psychology, communications, music, philosophy, political science, semiotics, theology, art history, queer theory, literature, criminology, urban planning, gender studies, education, graphic design, etc. Both theoretical and empirical approaches are welcomed.
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Guest Editor of Upcoming Themed Issue
Contact: Reconstruction Managing Editor
Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture is always interested in proposals for future Themed Issues. If you are interested in proposing a Themed Issue, please review our FAQ for Prospective Guest Editors and contact the Reconstruction Managing Editor for further information.
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