European Journal of English Studies, volume 31 (2027). Narrating Hope: Voices and Images of Resistance against the Capitalocene.
Deadline for contributions: 15 January 2026.
Guest Editors: María Porras Sánchez (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain); Susana Nicolás Román (Universidad de Almería, Spain); Janet Wilson (University of Northampton, UK).
Issue presentation
This special issue invites critical interventions on the ambivalent notion of hope as a mode of resistance in the context of the Capitalocene. Jason Moore’s concept of the Capitalocene frames ecological and social crises as systemic outcomes of capitalism understood as a “world-ecology” that organizes nature and restructures life itself. Within this context, vulnerability, its “politically induced” precarity and ecoprecarity, as highlighted by Judith Butler and Pramod Nayar respectively, are distributed across species, communities, and geographies, albeit disproportionately affecting marginalized communities and the Global South. The Capitalocene permeates all domains of possibility, rendering humans, nonhumans, and environments increasingly vulnerable while constraining our capacity to imagine alternative futures. These conditions do not merely anticipate bleak prospects; they also operate as sites where resistance, creativity, and imagination can emerge. This issue builds on Ernst Bloch’s theorization of utopian desire, Lauren Berlant’s articulation of “cruel optimism”, Rebecca Solnit’s framing of hope as an ethical stance, Jonathan Lear and Katie Stockdale’s reflections on radical and fearful hope, Goutam Karmakar’s notion of decolonial hope, and Mark Fisher’s observation that capitalism has colonized the dreaming life of the population. It situates hope not just as optimism or resilience, but as a profoundly ambivalent cultural force— one that registers past traumas, the complexities of the present, and the uncertainties of the future, while fostering imaginative and political horizons. These perspectives illuminate how hope oscillates between possibility and constraint, enabling transformation and reflecting existing structures of domination. Its multiple forms—from radical and fearful to decolonial articulations—underscore its role as a contested and generative force across contemporary cultural, political, and aesthetic practices.
We welcome contributions exploring how contemporary narratives—literary, graphic, cinematic, testimonial, and activist—deploy hope as a counter-discourse to neoliberal resilience, hollow optimism, and capitalist fatalism. While science fiction has been recognized for enabling utopian critiques of capitalism (Fredric Jameson), we also acknowledge that non-speculative forms such as memoir can embody “decolonial hope,” offering epistemologies that contest colonial and neocolonial modes of development (Karmakar). We therefore invite explorations across different genres. By integrating insights from literary and cultural studies, ecocriticism, political philosophy, comic studies, postcolonial theory, and related fields, this issue will showcase how hope functions within the triad of resistance and the Capitalocene, as both a conceptual and practical resource. At a time when systemic pressures appear to exhaust our capacity to imagine alternative futures, hope persists as a site of critical reflection, ethical engagement, and imaginative possibility. By highlighting its aesthetic, political, and ethical dimensions, the special issue will illustrate the diverse ways in which hope can guide interdisciplinary scholarship and inspire approaches to envisioning more just, sustainable, and decolonial futures. We invite submissions from diverse academic fields that address, but are not limited to, the following topics:
- hope, resistance, and the Capitalocene: cultural and political articulations
- precarity, vulnerability, and ecologies of hopeful resistance
- speculative genres (cli-fi, ecohorror, science fiction) and utopian/dystopian imaginaries
- realist and testimonial genres, life-writing, and wish-landscapes of hope
- feminist, queer, and decolonial reconfigurations of hope and resistance
- grief, mourning, and ecological loss as pathways to hopeful politics
- little utopias, everyday practices, and grassroots imaginaries of transformation
- art, comics, and visual cultures as counter-discourses to neoliberal resilience
- activism, protest aesthetics, and the affective politics of hope
- postcolonial, indigenous, and decolonial epistemologies of hope and environmental justice
- wish-landscapes, narrative form, and speculative social thought
- digital media, networks, and the circulation/mediation of hopeful resistance (social media, participatory platforms)
- futurity, temporalities, and anticipatory politics in the Capitalocene
Detailed proposals (up to 1000 words) for full essays (6000-8000 words), as well as a short biography (max. 100 words) should be sent to the guest editors by 15 January 2026: María Porras Sánchez, m.porras@ucm.es; Susana Nicolás Román, snroman@ual.es; Janet Wilson, janet.wilson@northampton.ac.uk
Selected authors should be able to submit a full-length draft by the end of May 2026, and a final version by mid-September. This issue will be part of volume 31 (2027). All inquiries regarding this issue can be sent to the three guest editors.
Procedure
EJES operates in a three-stage review process.
- Contributors are invited to submit proposals by 15 January 2026.
The guest editors make a selection of proposals in consultation with the editorial board and invite shortlisted authors to submit a full-length version by 31 May 2026. - The contributors’ full-length drafts are reviewed by the special issue editors, who may ask for revisions, and retain the right to reject an article if it does not meet the standards of the journal. Contributors are expected to submit a revised text by 15 September 2026.
- The revised articles are subject to a double-blind peer review (carried out on ScholarOne, the Taylor & Francis platform). On the basis of the peer review, editors formulate final advice (accept, minor revisions, major revisions, reject). In case revisions are called for, authors should be able to provide their final, fully revised version by 15 January 2027, for publication in the same year.
EJES employs Chicago Style (T&F Chicago AD) and British English conventions for spelling. For more information about EJES, see: http://www.essenglish.org/ejes.html and https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/neje20
CFP
For further details, please check the publication original call inserted below.
EJES CFP Narrating Hope. Resistance against the Capitalocene(Posted 28 November 2025)
European Journal of English Studies, volume 31 (2027). Narrating Conflict and Human Rights: Literature as Witness, Archive, and Agent of Change.
Deadline for contributions: 15 January 2026.
Guest editors: Tomasz Kalaga (Kujawy and Pomorze University in Bydgoszcz), Tiziana Ingravallo (University of Foggia), Loredana Salis (University of Sassari)
Issue presentation
The realities of conflict, including violations of human rights and the struggle for peace, provide rich thematic material for literary works. Literature can serve as a powerful tool for social change by denouncing injustices, fostering empathy, and engaging with injustices via its negotiation of the concepts of truth, reconciliation, and transitional justice. Writers can challenge official narratives surrounding conflict by giving voice to marginalised perspectives, exposing human rights abuses to a wider audience, and making invisible suffering visible. Literature, as an advocate for social change and human rights, raises awareness of ongoing conflicts and offers alternative understandings of historical events and their consequences. Operating through its innate symbolic quality and the power of telling and retelling myths, it can be approached as a dynamic arena capable of unsettling dominant epistemologies, reconfiguring what could be collectively claimed as justice. As a counter-discourse to official histories, literature has the potential to offer new ways of restoring a sense of humanity and shared responsibility by condemning all forms of imperialism and totalitarianism.
This issue will reflect on and explore ways in which conflict can be narrated and the extent to which texts of literature contribute to defending or violating human rights. It also reflects on how language can justify and/or ignore human rights transgressions. The issue takes an interest in articles that investigate the ability of literary texts to interrogate and explore the legacies of political and civil conflict around the world as well as creating and (unwittingly) reinforcing hegemonic narratives. We welcome essays on a wide range of genres, including fiction, poetry, drama, memoir, testimony, speculative and activist writing, as well as works in translation, adaptation, journalism, and visual or digital storytelling.
Although articles can address any topic related to literature and human rights, we are keen to receive proposals on five interrelated areas of literary engagement: a) literary depictions of experiences of war, displacement, surveillance, disenfranchisement, or environmental destruction; b) the role of literature in defining and articulating the concept of justice, documenting abuses, bearing witness to trauma, and narrating resistance and reconciliation; c) literary negotiations of power dynamics in conflict settings, including propaganda literature, translation and adaptation of conflict narratives, portrayals of nationalism and resistance movements, and the symbolic language of conflict and resolution; d) the concept of literature as magistra vitae in which historical insight is intertwined with visions of a more just future; e) narrative forms shaped by conflict, including fragmented storytelling and genre innovation, as well as activist literature addressing the intersections of human rights, environmental destruction, and the more-than-human world.
Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
- Activist literature: from human rights violations to environmental destruction
- Activist role of literature: models for socio-cultural transformations, inclusive societies, transnational belongings
- Beyond the anthropocentric: rights of species, rivers, forests
- Censorship and dissent: literature as subversion and alternative standpoint
- Entanglements of ecology and power: resource wars, extractivism, forced displacement
- Individual freedom and human dignity vs human rights violations, surveillance, oppression, disenfranchisement
- Journalism, conflict and human rights
- Literature and justice: shaping and reshaping the notion of what is or can be just
- Literary depictions of ecological trauma and conflict: decolonial and indigenous perspectives,
- Literature as an archive of environmental injustice: resistance narratives, testimonies and speculative fiction and non-fiction.
- Magistra vitae: when history and hope rhyme
- Narrating nationalism, nationalists and nationalist causes
- Postcolonial and decolonial perspectives: alternative epistemologies of justice, restitution, and ecological interconnectedness
- Post-traumatic memory
- Propaganda literature
- The language of conflict and conflict resolution: myths and symbols retold
- The role of human rights in research on law and literature
- Translation and adaptation
Detailed proposals (up to 1,000 words) for full essays (6,000-8,000 words) as well as a short biography (max. 100 words) should be sent to the editors by 15 January 2026: Tomasz Kalaga (t.kalaga @ kpsw. edu. pl), Tiziana Ingravallo (tiziana. ingravallo @ unifg. it), and Loredana Salis (lsalis@uniss.it).
Selected authors should be able to submit a full-length draft by the end of May 2026, and a final version by mid-September. This issue will be part of volume 31 (2027). All inquiries regarding this issue can be sent to the three guest editors.
Procedure
EJES operates in a three-stage review process:
- Contributors are invited to submit proposals by 15 January 2026. The guest editors make a selection of proposals in consultation with the editorial board and invite shortlisted authors to submit a full-length version by 31 May 2026.
- The contributors’ full-length drafts are reviewed by the special issue editors, who may ask for revisions, and retain the right to reject an article if it does not meet the standards of the journal. Contributors are expected to submit a revised text by 15 September 2026.
- The revised articles are subject to a double-blind peer review (carried out on ScholarOne, the Taylor & Francis platform). On the basis of the peer review, the editors will formulate a final advice (accept, minor revisions, major revisions, reject). In case revisions are called for, authors should be able to provide their final, fully revised version by 15 January 2027, for publication in the same year.
EJES employs Chicago Style (T&F Chicago AD) and British English conventions for spelling. For more information about EJES, see: http://www.essenglish.org/ejes.html and https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/neje20.
CFP
For further details, please check the publication original call inserted below.
(Posted 28 November 2025)
European Journal of English Studies, volume 31 (2027). Americanising English(es).
Deadline for contributions: 15 January 2026.
Guest editors: Javier Calle-Martín (University of Málaga, Spain); Marta Pacheco-Franco (University of Málaga, Spain); David Britain (University of Bern, Switzerland)
Issue presentation
This special issue sets out to address the Americanisation of English as a diachronic and as a diatopic phenomenon. It is a fact that American imperialism and the growth of pop-culture after World War II has eventually raised the United States “to the height of political, economic, commercial, technological strength”, thus transforming the English language “from being a reserve of the British Isles and their queen, to a code of international linguistic transaction” (Anchimbe 2006: 3; Graddol 1997: 9). Naturally, the form of the language that underwent this breadth of scope was none other than American English, a postcolonial variety which developed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and which reached the status of a norm provider in the twentieth. The dissemination of this variety worldwide is leading to the Americanisation of the English language, a process that has brought about a varying level of “submergence of regional and national varieties and cultures into a far greater and more powerful American-determined variety” (Anchimbe 2006: 9). This submergence is what comes to light when we consider the dissemination of the spellings –ize and –ization as a form on the rise even in the non-American determined varieties, the widespread diffusion of the regular past tense forms of verbs such as dream or burn or the incidence of intensifiers this and that in present-day English, among many other features.
Considering Americanisation as an active process shaping the configuration of English today, this issue aims to investigate the origin and development of distinctly-American forms and their use and distribution in the other varieties of English worldwide, inner and outer Englishes included. The major objectives of the special issue are to examine the historical configuration of American English and its present-day status, as well as its effects outside the American borders at different linguistic levels – e.g. orthography, phonology, morphology, syntax or lexis – and from a wide variety of perspectives. The issue also welcomes studies on current linguistic changes as a result of other processes such as colloquialisation, democratisation and gender- neutrality.
We are keen to address the following questions in this issue:
- How did American English come into existence? How did particular linguistic features become quintessential of the variety and what intra- and extralinguistic factors participated in the process? How has the development of the variety influenced national identity?
- How do orthographic, grammatical, lexical or phonological differences between American and British English relate to broader social, historical and cultural phenomena?
- In what ways has the dissemination of American English influenced the orthography, grammar, vocabulary or pronunciation of other varieties worldwide?
- What agents participate in the Americanisation of English today? What role does American media play in the process? To what extent is linguistic change the result of the integration of American English in the fields of business, science and technology? Do language and educational policies take part?
- How do the native varieties of English (e.g. British, Canadian or Australian) resist, adapt to or surrender to Americanisation?
Detailed proposals (up to 1,000 words) for full essays (6000-8000 words), as well as a short biography (max. 100 words) should be sent to the editors by 15 January 2026: Javier Calle-Martín, jcalle@uma.es and Marta Pacheco-Franco, martapacheco@uma.es.
Selected authors should be able to submit a full-length draft by the end of May 2026, and a final version by mid-September. This issue will be part of volume 31 (2027). All inquiries regarding this issue can be sent to the three guest editors.
Procedure
EJES operates in a three-stage review process.
- Contributors are invited to submit proposals by 15 January 2026.
The guest editors make a selection of proposals in consultation with the editorial board and invite shortlisted authors to submit a full-length version by 31 May 2026. - The contributors’ full-length drafts are reviewed by the special issue editors, who may ask for revisions, and retain the right to reject an article if it does not meet the standards of the journal. Contributors are expected to submit a revised text by 15 September 2026.
- The revised articles are subject to a double-blind peer review (carried out on ScholarOne, the Taylor & Francis platform). On the basis of the peer review, editors formulate final advice (accept, minor revisions, major revisions, reject). In case revisions are called for, authors should be able to provide their final, fully revised version by 15 January 2027, for publication in the same year.
EJES employs Chicago Style (T&F Chicago AD) and British English conventions for spelling. For more information about EJES, see: http://www.essenglish.org/ejes.html and https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/neje20
CFP
For further details, please check the original call inserted below.
(Posted 28 November 2025)
A Journal of Anglo-American Studies: Series 4, No. 1 (2026) – General Issue: (New) Beginnings.
Deadline for contributions: 15 January 2026.
Edited by: Alexandra Cheira, Universidade de Lisboa
Publication presentation
Thoughts associated with beginnings often include excitement, anticipation, and a sense of possibility, alongside potential anxiety, uncertainty, and a hint of the unknown. Beginnings can be viewed as a fresh start, a new chapter, or a chance to rebuild, while also acknowledging the potential messiness and challenges that come with starting something new.
Hence, on the plus side, beginnings represent a fresh start, offering the chance to pursue new goals, learn new things, and create a better future. There’s often a sense of thrill and eagerness associated with the start of something new, whether it’s a new job, a new relationship, or a new hobby. Beginnings provide an opportunity for personal and professional development, allowing individuals to expand their horizons and discover new facets of themselves. Starting anew can involve shedding old habits and embracing a different path, leading to significant personal transformation. In a nutshell, beginnings herald positive aspects such as hope and opportunity, excitement and anticipation, the potential for growth, reinvention and transformation.
However, beginnings can also prefigure challenging attributes of uncertainty and anxiety, fear of failure, discomfort, and letting go of the past: the possibility of failure can loom large, creating anxiety and hesitation when embarking on a new endeavour; the initial stages of any new undertaking can be messy and require a willingness to adapt and learn from mistakes; moving forward often requires letting go of past experiences and attachments, which can be emotionally challenging. By definition, beginnings are thus a complex mix of positive and negative emotions, offering both the promise of a brighter future and the potential for difficult adjustments.
For the first general issue in the fourth series of Op. Cit.: A Journal of Anglo-American Studies, we are especially interested in contributions that analyse beginnings, with a focus on both positive and negative aspects as suggested in the literary quotes below:
- “The beginning is always today.” (Mary Shelley)
- “I make so many beginnings there never will be an end.” (Louisa May Alcott)
- “Every new beginning comes from other beginning’s end.” (Seneca)
- “One can begin so many things with a new person – even begin to be a better man.” (George Eliot)
- “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” (Andre Gide)
- “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” (C.S. Lewis)
- “For last year’s words belong to last year’s language/ And next year’s words await another voice./ And to make an end is to make a beginning.” (T.S. Eliot)
We welcome papers from scholars from a variety of academic backgrounds and encourage submissions from postgraduate students and early career researchers. Submissions, between 5,000 and 7,500 words in length, must be sent to op.cit.journal@gmail.com by January 15, 2026. Manuscripts will undergo a double-blind peer reviewing process, and must be unpublished. The authors will be notified by the end of February 2026.
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CFP
For further details, please check the publication original call inserted below.
(Posted 17 October 2025)