Prose Studies: History, Theory, Criticism invites article submissions on nonfiction prose in any historical field or contemporary context. Under new editorship, the journal endorses a capacious definition of nonfiction prose that includes not just the traditional genres such as essays, memoirs, and sermons, but also newer and hybrid genres: prose poems, digital life writing, and Twitter threads, etc. We also welcome submissions that consider nonfiction prose in relation to other genres. How do graphic memoirs combine image and text? How might we read an author’s literary or art criticism, or activist writing, against their fiction, poetry, or drama? Finally, Prose Studies encourages submissions on both canonical and non-canonical authors, in multiple literary traditions, and invites scholarship from diverse perspectives.
Topics might include, but are by no means limited to:
- Social justice campaigns, historical and contemporary
- Science writing, nature writing, etc.
- Institutional discourses (medical, legal, etc.)
- Prose writings of novelists, poets, dramatists, etc.
- Life writing in all its forms
- Illustrated and graphic nonfiction prose
- Material conditions of publication
- Constructions of and challenges to social norms
- Nonfiction prose and various readerships
- Redefining the genre of nonfiction prose
- History of ideas
- Formal innovations
- Transnational exchanges
- Social networks of and through nonfiction prose
- Literary criticism/theory as nonfiction prose
- Complexities of identity and agency
As editors, we are committed to fostering insightful, significant scholarship, and we are, likewise, committed to an expeditious peer-review and publication process. We welcome the opportunity to work with authors, at all stages, as they develop their manuscripts into published research.
Queries may be sent to Editors in Chief, Anna Maria Jones, and Lisa Hager. Manuscripts of no more than 9,000 words can be submitted through the journal’s online portal.