Call for Papers: Special issue of Authorship
In analyzing cultural formations of “authoriality” as they developed historically, over a long period of time and in a variety of geographical locations, in relation to cultural networks and social change, to transformations of the media, as well as to changing perceptions of gender and personhood, the open access peer-reviewed online journal Authorship hopes to foster a more refined and precise theoretical and historical understanding of the complex ideological, technological, and social processes that transform a writer into an author. As guest editor of a June 2021 special issue of Authorship focused on Canada, I am seeking articles on the cultural performance of authorship in any contemporary or historical literary milieu.
Topics include, but are not limited to:
- Authorship across and within diverse languages, literatures, and geographical locations: First Nations, colonial, transatlantic, transnational, translated, polyglot
- Varieties of authors: poets, dramatists, novelists, journalists, critics, humourists; authors as entertainers, public intellectuals, moralists
- Authenticity, authority, agency, attribution
- Authorship and the canon
- Gender, genre, and authorship: interrogating putative “feminine” and “masculine” models and modes of writing, self-fashioning, and getting published
- Fame, infamy, lack of public recognition; the self-creation, branding, and reception of authors
- Anonymity, pseudonymity, and authorial personae
- Authors and cultural networks; authors and collaboration; single and multiple authors
- The quotidian activities of writers as they relate to the public image of authors
- Translation, editing, redacting, and reviewing considered as kinds of authorial performances
- Authorship and the global marketplace; authorship and intellectual property
- The textual re-creation of authors by editors, publishers, and printers
- Authorship and/in the material book; authorship and new technologies (film, digital media, the internet)
As an average length, Authorship prefers articles of approximately 5,000 words (notes and bibliography included), but slightly shorter ones are acceptable. Finalized articles should include parenthetical references to a final bibliography, using either the MLA style sheet or the Chicago style sheet (Author-Date system). The journal uses footnotes rather than endnotes.
Please send your submission as an email attachment to guest editor Ruth Panofsky of Ryerson University at panofsky@ryerson.ca by 15 January 2021. Kindly include a 50-word biographical statement and feel free to contact me with any questions.