American, British and Canadian Studies, the Journal of the Academic Anglophone Society of Romania, appears biannually in June and December. It is a peer-reviewed journal that sets out to explore the intersections of culture, technology and the human sciences in the age of electronic information. It publishes work by scholars of any nationality on Anglophone Studies, Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies, Postcolonial Theory, Social and Political Science, Anthropology, Area Studies, Multimedia and Digital Arts and related subjects. Articles addressing influential crosscurrents in current academic thinking are particularly welcomed. ABC Studies also publishes book reviews and review essays, interviews, work-in-progress, conference reports, research project outlines, notes and comments.
To maintain an ongoing dialogue with our readers, we alternate commissioned themed issues, where papers are actively commissioned by the special issue editor, with issues featuring unsolicited submissions that address themes of immediate interest to us. Calls for papers inviting submissions to the non-commissioned issues are announced via the journal’s web pages and in the journal itself. Our primary goal is to bring together in trans-cultural dialogue scholars conducting advanced research in the theoretical humanities. As well as offering innovative approaches to influential crosscurrents in recent thinking, the journal seeks to contribute fresh angles to the academic subject of English and promote groundbreaking research across conventional boundaries. Within the proposed range of diversity, our major scope is to provide close examinations and lucid analyses of the role and future of the academic institutions at the cutting edge of high-tech.
To respond to the increasing demands of ‘acceleration’ in the twenty-first century, an Open Access electronic edition of the journal is now available with De Gruyter. Articles published in ABC Studies are abstracted and indexed on the journal’s website.
Non-themed Issue, June 2018
American, British and Canadian Studies is now accepting submissions for its June 2018 issue, an open-theme edition featuring our usual selection of critical-creative multidisciplinary work. We invite contributions in the form of articles, essays, interviews, book reviews, conference presentations and project outlines that seek to take Anglophone studies to a new level of enquiry across disciplinary boundaries. Guidelines for contributors are available below and on the journal’s website.
Special Issue: Kazuo Ishiguro, December 2018
Deadline: 15 June 2018
Guest Editor: Dr Alexandra Mitrea, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, alexandra.mitrea@ulbsibiu.ro
Acclaimed as one of the finest contemporary British writers – while of Japanese background –, Kazuo Ishiguro has elicited, ever since his first novel, strong responses ranging from admiration to bafflement. A very elusive writer whose work invites a multiplicity of perspectives and interpretations, Ishiguro challenges the reader with his carefully controlled narratives which withhold more than they reveal. His skillful merging of memory, imagination and dream plunges the reader into a maze-like reality beneath which lies a “buried giant” – an unsettling secret which is gradually revealed by a narrator who may be highly unreliable.
Furthermore, as a diasporic writer, he is preoccupied with the question of the Other, more precisely with the internal otherness or doubleness of the British subject itself, raising multifarious ethical, spiritual and psychological issues. As a “homeless writer” addressing an international readership, he has reflected on highly topical themes such as cultural difference in Britain as well as the crisis of subjectivity, dwelling on the connection between the personal and the political.
Ishiguro is, moreover, one of those rare writers who reinvent themselves stylistically with each new novel or collection of stories. His ventriloquism and attention to cultural identity are doubled by an eye for quirks of character and experiences which stretch the limits of the probable. His novels are replete with double takes, déjà vus, Freudian slips, fluidities, dislocations and misperformances of every description. Inhabiting a space at the intersection of realism, fabulism, surrealism and expressionism, they invite the reader to put away the accustomed reading instruments, such as generic categories and structural conventions, and accept a more immersive reading experience.
In the wake of his being awarded the prestigious Nobel Prize for “novels of great emotional force” that “uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world,” we find it timely to reconsider his ouvre, in the hope of contributing significantly to current critical thinking on his work. To this end, we invite original critical articles which address these concerns from a variety of perspectives and disciplinary angles.
Key themes may include, but are not limited to:
- Home, nationhood, ethnicity
- Migratory identities, cultural hybridity, diasporic subjectivities
- British national literary identity
- Ethics, contemporary human rights, cloning and trauma
- The crisis of artistic representation and creativity
- Experiments with form and style
Articles will be subject to a blind peer reviewing process and must not be under consideration for any other publications. Please refer to the author submission guidelines on the American, British and Canadian Studies Journal website, http://abcjournal.ulbsibiu.ro. Complete manuscripts, of up to a maximum of 7500 words including bibliography, are requested by June 15th, 2018 for publication in December 2018. Please include a biographical note of up to 200 words, accompanied by an abstract (200 words) and a list of 10 key words/concept. Enquiries and submissions are to be directed to Dr. Alexandra Mitrea, Faculty of Letters and Arts, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, alexandra.mitrea@ulbsibiu.ro. and copied to abc.journal@ulbsibiu.ro. Authors will be notified within six weeks of the closing date.
Special Issue: Images of the Translator and Interpreter in Anglophone Literature, June 2019
Deadline: 1 February 2019
Guest Editors: Dr Adriana Neagu, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, adrianacecilianeagu@gmail.com; Dr Alina Pelea, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, alinapelea21@gmail.com.
American, British and Canadian Studies, the Journal of the Academic Anglophone Society of Romania, invites submissions for a special 2019 issue on Images of the Translator and Interpreter in Anglophone Literature, guest edited by Dr Adriana Neagu and Dr Alina Pelea, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj. The Special Issue will explore fictional representations of translation and interpretation roles across the centuries with emphasis on the dominant motifs, the myths, stereotypes, clichés and their reverberations in Anglophone translation and interpretation cultures. While we primarily target contributions by professional translation and interpreter practitioners, scholars and trainers, we welcome as well original academic essays that address themes such as location and multilingualism in translation and interpretation studies, renditions of narrative discourse in the translation and interpretation profession, TS and IS between theory and praxis, and the changing landscape of TS and IS.
We also welcome creative contributions and book reviews of recent TS and IS criticism volumes. Articles and contributions must not have been published elsewhere, nor currently be under review in any other journal.
Submission guidelines: The first page of the manuscript should carry the title, author’s name, institutional affiliation, a 200-word abstract, and ten key words/concepts. The article/piece must include a 200-word biographical note, and must conform to MLA referencing (7th Edition). Please see further information and instructions on the Journal’s guidelines on: http://abcjournal.ulbsibiu.ro/Journal%20Submission%20Guidelines.html
The word length for scholarly articles is 7500 words.
The word length for creative pieces is 3000 words.
The word length for reviews is 1000 words.
Please email enquiries and submissions marked “Images of the Translator and Interpreter in Anglophone Literature” to Dr Adriana Neagu on adrianacecilianeagu@gmail.com and Dr Alina Pelea on alinapelea21@gmail.com, copied to abc.journal@ulbsibiu.ro, before the closing date.
Guidelines for Contributors
American, British and Canadian Studies seeks quality submissions of work in the entire spectrum of the humanities. The review process is blind: articles are sent out to subject specialists for reviewing anonymously and we leave it up to the reviewers to choose whether or not to reveal themselves to you. Decisions on articles submitted are normally made within two months. You are strongly encouraged to submit exciting and broad-ranging original articles that have not been published elsewhere, nor are currently under review in any other refereed journal. We regret we are unable to accept multiple submissions. You may submit papers that have been presented in conferences only if the papers have been thoroughly revised or extended to engage a theme that fits the ABC Studies profile.
A chief objective of the journal is to minimise the time for paper processing and to expedite printing; therefore, electronic submission of papers in final form is strongly recommended. Please email your contribution to abc.journal@ulbsibiu.ro before the closing date. The first page of the manuscript should carry the title, names of authors, institutional affiliations, a brief but detailed 200-word abstract, and 7-10 key words/ concepts.
The normal word-limit for articles is 7500 words, including notes and references. Please include a brief 200-word biography for our Notes on Contributors along with contact information. For detailed instructions for preparing your contribution and a sense of format, topics of interest to us and targeted audience, you may wish to consult the journal’s previous issues and style files at http://abcjournal.ulbsibiu.ro. Only articles styled in compliance with the 7th edition of the MLA Handbook and our Submission Guidelines posted on the journal websites will be considered. Please email us if you have any queries. Questions about content should be directed to karina.schneider@ulbsibiu.ro.
Deadlines for Submissions: American, British and Canadian Studies is published biannually in June and December. The deadlines for submission of contributions are typically 1 February for the summer edition (expected publication: 15 June) and 1 August for the winter edition (expected publication: 15 December), but may differ for special issues.
Special Issues
Suggestions for special issues are welcome. To propose a special issue, a two-page proposal should be submitted to Adriana Neagu, Advisory Editor, containing the following information: title; purpose; scope; a list of prospective contributors; time-table (submission and review deadlines, intended publication date); and guest editor’s address, phone, fax, and e-mail address.
Once approved, the guest editor will be fully responsible for commissioning/ advertising, selecting and copy-editing the articles to be included in that issue, as well as for writing the editorial, and should follow the normal review procedure of this journal. Simple proposals of theme(s) without guest-editing commitment are also welcome and will be given due consideration. Please attach these to your contributions and email to adriananeagu@lett.ubbcluj.ro and abc.journal@ulbsibiu.ro.