We are delighted to share a call for submissions for Alluvium, a partner journal of the British Association of Contemporary Literary Studies. Alluvium is an open access journal featuring short academic essays of around 2000-3000 words on key issues and emerging trends in 21st century writing and criticism. The journal publishes six issues a year, employing a system of post-publication by the engaged commentariat on the message boards of the journal’s website, enabling vital current ideas to find a rapid readership.
We plan three general issues and three special issues over the course of the year, with topics determined by our Editorial team. We seek both broad contributions, engaging with the definition of contemporary literature and criticism and its relationship with 21st century culture, society and politics, and more specific contributions on particular issues, themes or genres in contemporary literary production.
Possible topics might include, but are not limited to:
● Literary responses to contemporary politics
● Ecocriticism and climate crisis
● Digital humanities
● New perspectives on cultural and critical theory
● Postcolonial literature
● Twenty-first-century genres
● Historical fiction
● Medical humanities
● Dystopian / Utopian visions
● Pedagogical approaches to contemporary literary studies
● 21st century literary prize culture
● Literature and inequality
● Literature and the contemporary arts
In the spirit of BACLS’ rolling definition of ‘the contemporary’, Alluvium assumes a fluid and hybrid understanding of the contemporary moment, rather than a given periodisation. We welcome proposals either for single articles or for series of two or three articles and we encourage the use of visual material. We are particularly keen to include voices from a range of academic disciplines, alongside those of creative practitioners.
If you are interested in contributing to Alluvium please email abstract(s) and a short bio-note (including your name, email, and institutional affiliation if applicable) to editorial@alluvium-journal.org. Please also include an indication of when you plan to deliver this article. If you have any questions or suggestions please feel free to contact Alluvium’s managing editors Julia Ditter, Liam Harrison or Martin Goodhead.
Please read the Notes for Contributors below before submitting any proposals or articles.
Alluvium | Notes for Contributors
What style should I write in?
Alluvium articles are intended as short academic articles that are dedicated to 21st-century writing as well as 21st-century approaches to the literary canon. We would encourage contributors to focus their articles around key issues and emerging trends in literature and literary criticism, and open up discussion through raising pertinent questions and encouraging (as well as answering/maintaining where necessary) discussion with readers through the site’s message boards, which accompanying each article.
How can I become an Alluvium author?
If you would like to become an Alluvium author, please contact the Managing Editors Julia Ditter, Liam Harrison and Martin Goodhead (editorial@alluvium-journal.org) and include your contact details, professional biography, an outline of the article/s you would like to propose (max 250 words) and an indication of when you will be able to deliver it, as well as a sample of your recently published writing. We welcome proposals for up to three articles from a single author – these may be discrete or part of a linked project. We accept submissions on a rolling basis throughout the year, though we may not be able to schedule articles we accept immediately.
How are editorial decisions made and articles scheduled?
We release a new issue every two months comprising four articles and an editorial. Each issue is edited by a small team drawn from Alluvium’s editorial committee. New submissions are circulated to the editorial committee and the editorial team for each issue make a decision of which articles to commission. Our aim to make a decision on submissions within eight weeks of receipt.
Length
Please ensure that your finished article is around 2000 – 3000 words in length.
Referencing Style
Please use the MLA citation style. Alluvium authors are encouraged to use hyperlinks within their articles rather than include footnotes. We are happy to include footnotes that are absolutely relevant to the article, but excessive footnoting can be time-consuming to edit and upload to the website.
Article Titles
We can only use short article titles as a result of the way in which our featured slider bar functions on Alluvium’s homepage. Please suggest short (3-4 word) titles for your article.
Images
Alluvium is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License and is stored in the British Library’s ISSN electronic store as well as being catalogued in the UK Web Archive. This means that we can only use images which are offered within Creative Commons-licensed content. If you would like to recommend any images, please ensure that they are CC-licensed or are images for which you have copyright permission. For this reason, the editors reserve the right to include, remove or modify images within articles.
Hyperlinks
We strongly encourage Alluvium authors to include hyperlinks within their articles. Please suggest any links that you would like to be included at the end of your article – do not embed hyperlinks yourself. The editors reserve the right to include hyperlinks to appropriate sites, works or texts within articles.
We strongly encourage all Alluvium contributors to consider setting up a Twitter account if they are not already Twitter users. Increasing Alluvium’s readership depends upon engagement through social media like Facebook and Twitter, and we appreciate any links, retweets or mentions of your work and the journal to your followers. You can follow Alluvium on Twitter and on Facebook.