Philip Roth’s 2007 novel, Exit Ghost, borrows its title from the repeated stage direction in Act I, Scene I of Shakespeare’s Hamlet – a stage direction that is preceded by Horatio’s plea: “Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!” Readers may likely feel the same way about Zuckerman who appears, in Roth’s play-within-the-play, by novel’s end to be “Gone for good.” Roth’s so-called alter-ego has reflected on the contemporary American landscape since 1979, when Roth introduced Nathan Zuckerman as the up-and-coming writer already plagued by questions of legacy and significance, loss and historical tragedy in The Ghost Writer. Now, after nearly three decades featuring Zuckerman’s fraught sense of the writer’s position in the world, Exit Ghost seems to be his final farewell.

For this fall 2009 special issue, Philip Roth Studies seeks articles between 4,000 and 8,000 words in length, and shorter note-length pieces not exceeding 2,500 words on the topic “Mourning Zuckerman.” This special issue will not only consider the loss of Zuckerman, who holds a special place within Roth’s oeuvre, but also it will consider Zuckerman as a figure himself perpetually in mourning.

Possible topics could include, but are not limited to:

• Exit Ghost as a final, or finalizing, text
• Nathan Zuckerman’s mourning and/ or mourning Nathan Zuckerman
• The retirement of Roth’s alter ego
• The relationship between other later novels, such as Everyman, and Exit Ghost
• The metaphor of illness in the Zuckerman novels
• The symbolic or narrative “deaths” of Zuckerman
• Zuckerman’s failed romantic or familial relationships
• Zuckerman’s narrative style, or narrative style as a function of Zuckerman
• Zuckerman’s evolution as both a storyteller and fictional protagonist

Manuscripts must be prepared according to the MLA Style Manual, 2nd ed. (1998) by Joseph Gibaldi and should contain endnotes rather than footnotes. Address electronic submissions via email (as attached Word files) to:

Aimee Pozorski, Guest Editor, Central Connecticut State University (pozorskia@mail.ccsu.edu)
and
Miriam Jaffe-Foger, Co-editor, Rutgers University (miribird@eden.rutgers.edu)

Submission Deadline for Abstracts: July 31, 2008
Submission Deadline for Accepted Articles: December 30, 2008 We will respond to every submission and give notice of accepted abstracts by August 15, 2008. Acceptance of final essays is left to the discretion of the co-editors following a rigorous revision process during the spring of 2009.