Journal of Literary Theory Vol. 20, No. 1 (2026)

Special Issue »Literary Studies and/as Political Activism«

Submission Deadline: 15 July 2025

Call for Articles

Ecocriticism is, according to an introduction, »an avowedly political mode of analysis«. In this respect, it is said to be related to Marxism and feminism (Garrard 2012, 3). However, Marxism, feminism and ecocriticism are by no means the only approaches in current literary and cultural studies that are explicitly committed to a political agenda and, thus, to a normative political foundation. Other examples include Postcolonial Studies, Queer Studies, Critical Race Theory, Disability Studies, and Ageing Studies. Theories of world literature are also often put forward with the political and ethical ambition to make the ›peripheral‹ zones of world literature more visible, and they are evaluated with respect to this aim (cf. Cheah 2014). The concept and practices of cultural appropriation are discussed not only in political contexts, but also in literary theory and philosophical aesthetics, as documented by an issue of the British Journal of Aesthetics from 2021 (see, for example, Haynes 2021). Political activism frequently serves as the basis for cooperation between literary studies and other disciplines, as well as non-university institutions (see Kim 2022). However, for some years now, the premises, methods and aims of politically engaged approaches have also been the subject of critical self-reflection, in which the merits and limits of forms of ›Critique‹ have been called into question (cf. Felski 2015; Anker/Felski 2017). The alternatives proposed in this context, such as ›postcritical reading‹, have themselves given rise to controversial discussions targeting, among other things, their political implications. The fact that a recent introduction to Criticism and Politics presents itself as »A Polemical Introduction« (Robbins 2022) testifies to the intensity of these debates.

In view of the multitude of such politically and ethically engaged approaches, which attribute new responsibilities and potential to the humanities in particular (Levine 2023), and the complexity of the debates they have provoked, the planned special issue of the Journal of Literary Theory offers a forum to reflect on fundamental questions about the relationship between literary studies, literary theory and political activism (in a broad sense). Scholars working in one of these fields, as well as interested or critical observers of these approaches, are invited to discuss questions such as the following:

• What exactly can and should literary studies contribute to the (broadly defined) political objectives of the various approaches?
• Are the political objectives compatible with established epistemic standards for interpretation and literary historiography? Or is this the wrong question altogether, because the politically engaged approaches seek to criticize these very standards and to confront them with ›non-academic forms of knowledge‹ (Kim 2022, 433)?
• How do such ›avowedly political modes of analysis‹ relate to approaches in literary studies that aim for a closer collaboration with the sciences or which conceive of the interpretation of literature itself as an ›empirical science‹ (cf. Tepe 2007)?
• How or at what levels do political and ethical values and norms come into play: in the choice of objects of study, in the interpretation of texts (and other media artefacts), and in their evaluation or in academic discourse about them (cf. Dabashi 2020)?
• Many approaches that are politically engaged in a broad sense seem to be committed to specific concepts of literature, although these are rarely spelled out. What exactly are these underlying assumptions about the functions of literature? What role do assumptions about literature as a medium of dominant ideologies or about the subversive potential of literature play in current approaches? Is it true that a large part of literary and cultural studies is guided by the idea of ideological ›deep structures‹ in literary texts, structures that have to be uncovered by means of a ›hermeneutics of suspicion‹ (Felski 2015)?
• How might the political orientation of literary studies be made transparent? Should we try to separate a politically-neutral from a normatively-charged terminology – i.e., terms such as ›adaptation‹ or ›parody‹ from a term such as ›cultural appropriation‹? Or would such attempts be theoretically naïve or open to the charge that they are themselves an expression of a political attitude? What current – cultural and interdisciplinary – developments can be traced in this area and how effective or promising are they?
• Politically-committed approaches in literary studies are by no means a new phenomenon, as the above references to Marxism and feminism indicate; one might also think of the ›traditional‹ critique of ideology. However, some of the relevant current approaches explicitly situate themselves in a moment ›after‹: after the great era of ›Theory‹ and ›Critique‹, after the end of ›classical‹ feminism, or after the ›discovery‹ of the Anthropocene. To what extent do these more recent political approaches really go beyond earlier theories and/or modes of critique?
• To what extent are politically engaged approaches shaped by specific national contexts and traditions? (See, for example, the reflections on American Studies in the USA in Fluck 2011.)

Contributions have to be submitted by 15 July 2025. Please submit your contribution to the editorial office (JLT@phil.uni-goettingen.de). Articles that are not intended for one of the focus topics can be submitted at any time and completely independently of the manuscript deadlines for the focus topics.

Articles are chosen for publication by an international advisory board in a double-blind review process.

For further information, please visit the website of the journal (https://jltonline.de/) or the publisher (https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/jlt/html).

The JLT publishes scholarly articles on questions of literary theory, the methodology of literary studies and the methods of scholarly interpretation of literary texts. In addition, articles exploring the history of disciplines concerned with literature and articles empirically examining the actual research practice of these disciplines are of interest. The JLT is open to interdisciplinary contributions that address questions related to literature and literary theory, including those from linguistics, digital humanities, media and cultural studies, sociology, philosophy, and the arts.

The JLT has a dedicated and exclusive theoretical focus. Case studies will not be considered for publication. Case studies are studies dedicated to individual authors, literary texts or problems of literary history. Even if such case studies address theoretical questions or methodological problems as a prerequisite for the actual investigation and even if, in a common understanding of the term, they ›apply‹ a given theory to a literary text or body of texts, the JLT is not the appropriate journal for them.

References

Anker, Elisabeth S./ Rita Felski (eds.), Critique and Postcritique, Durham 2017.

Cheah, Pheng, World against Globe: Toward a Normative Conception of World Literature, New Literary History 45:3 (2014), 303–329.

Dabashi, Pardis, Introduction to »Cultures of Argument«. The Loose Garments of Argument, PMLA. Publications of the Modern Language Association 135:5 (2020), 946–955.

Felski, Rita, The Limits of Critique, Chicago 2015.

Fluck, Winfried, Standards und Normen in der Amerikanistik, Journal of Literary Theory 5:2 (2011), 163–166.

Garrard, Greg, Ecocriticism [2004], London/New York ²2012.

Haynes, Paul, The Ethics and Aesthetics of Intertextual Writing: Cultural Appropriation and Minor Literature, British Journal of Aesthetics 61:3 (2021), 291–306.

Kim, David D., Einleitung des Gastherausgebers: Was heißt und zu welchem Ende praktiziert man literaturwissenschaftlichen Aktivismus?, Jahrbuch der deutschen Schillergesellschaft 66 (2022), 431–435.

Levine, Caroline, The Activist Humanist: Form and Method in the Climate Crisis, Princeton 2023.

Robbins, Bruce, Criticism and Politics. A Polemical Introduction, Stanford 2022.

Tepe, Peter, Kognitive Hermeneutik. Textinterpretation ist als Erfahrungswissenschaft möglich, Würzburg 2007.

Please contact the editorial office if you have further questions.

JLT – Journal of Literary Theory
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