Ethics and Literary Practice II: Refugees and Representation

Dear Colleagues,

Together, we propose a Special Issue of Humanities focused on the theme of “Literature and Refugees”. The approach will be interdisciplinary, inviting scholars, writers, and artists both from within and beyond academia, from disciplinary fields as diverse as political theory, philosophy, literary studies, and history, as well as other kinds of writing, e.g., poetry and fiction, graphic narrative and personal reflection. Drawing on theoretical frameworks and displaying a repertoire of performative practices, our hope is to explore the layered nature of the often-intractable questions accompanying the right to asylum. Faced with the sadly quotidian headlines of despair and the rhetorical impasse they so often generate, we aim to project alternate horizons and outward passages that may illuminate the condition of the refugee.

We anticipate that the following themes will be addressed by those contributing to the Special Issue: an understanding of the history and practice of asylum from antiquity to the present day; how writers across a range of genres deal with issues of representing the struggles of refugee experience; what possibilities open up for more just global responses to the suffering of refugees; and what literary texts and their interpretive practice can bring to an ethical-politics devoted to the question of the refugee.

The suggested length of submissions is 7500–10,000 words; however, this will vary depending upon the genre of the work submitted (for example, a poem of one or two pages).

Prof. Dr. Michelle Boulous Walker
Prof. Emer. Adam Zachary Newton
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Humanities is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.