This Issue

CALL FOR PAPERS AND REVIEWS
The Scattered Pelican, Volume 1, Issue 2 (Spring 2016)

 

Fight OR Flight

          The Scattered Pelican, the graduate journal of Comparative Literature at Western University, is excited to share the Call for Papers for its forthcoming Spring issue, entitled “Fight OR Flight”:

          In 1915, Harvard scientist Walter Bradford Cannon coined the term “fight or flight” to describe animals’ responses to challenging stimuli, including potential bodily harm and threats to survival. Cannon’s work provided us with insight into how animals—humans included—employ physiological mechanisms to deal with stressful encounters, arguably with the end to maintain homeostasis in both the bodily and environmental systems.

          Volume 1, Issue 2 of The Scattered Pelican invites contributions that engage the nuances of “fight or flight,” and which show how it may be seen as a principal undercurrent in various fields, including literature, critical theory, cultural studies, gender studies, history, politics, and media studies, among others. The Editorial Board is especially interested in receiving papers that challenge the view of “fight or flight” primarily as a behavioral or evolutionary psychology phenomenon rooted in involuntary responses, and which instead try to show “fight or flight” as a split second horizon where subjectivity can enact conscious action that may or may not result in equilibrium. Suggested themes and areas of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  1. Resistance: war narratives; proletarian literature; agitprop; subversion; the artist as Revolutionary; the Avant-Garde; guerilla movements; dynamics of power
  2. Escapism and flights of fancy: fantasy literature; obsessions and addictions; pop culture; prosthesis; mystical literature; science fiction
  3. Civil (dis)obedience: beta-uprisings; propaganda; (ab)normalcy and normativity; Arab Spring; “Je suis Charlie”; literature in the age of Terror; surveillance/sousveillance
  4. Pacifism and activism: ecocriticism; animal studies; confrontations; honour codes; no retreat, no surrender; non-violent resistance
  5. Bodies as sites of struggle: queer theory; intersectionality; uncertainty and paralysis; instincts and reflexes; anxiety; horror and the Grotesque; post/transhumanism
  6. Migration and diaspora: immigrant literature; refugee narratives; literatures of exile; displacement; post/de/neocolonialism

          The Scattered Pelican accepts full-length journal articles (4000-5000 words) as well as critical reviews of books, films, and artworks (1000-1500 words). The word count must be inclusive of the Works Cited and endnotes, and all texts must follow the latest MLA style. If submitting a journal article, please include a brief abstract and 2-3 keywords. The Scattered Pelican is a double-blind peer reviewed journal; as such, to maintain the integrity of the anonymous review process, please ensure all identifying marks and personal information are removed from your submission.

          The deadline of submission for manuscripts for this issue has now passed. 

          For more information on the submission guidelines, please refer to the “For Authors” section of our website.