This special issue of ELN will investigate the topic of “Literature and Pseudoscience”: that is, science whose claims to truth are not bolstered by the experimental method. This topic is intended to shed new light on literary value by placing literature in the context of historical and contemporary forms of knowledge production.

We welcome contributions on a broad range of issues and topics, including

•The relationship between the truth value of literature and the truth value of the sciences
•Scientific and literary epistemologies
•What constitutes unverifiable knowledge at particular historical moments
•How pseudoscience intersects with broader issues of knowledge creation and knowledge management
•The entanglement of literary theory with debates over scientific truth (e.g., the Sokal Affair)
•The intersections of pseudoscience with particular literary or bibliographical scholarly methods.
•Research findings on particular writers, texts, or cultural figures, or on particular pseudosciences: astrology; alchemy, the occult, mesmerism, phrenology, theosophy, parapsychologies, dietary reform, eugenics, Scientology, medical quackeries and patent medicines and therapies, New Age, the Gaia movement and ecological mysticism, creation science, intelligent design, celebrated frauds (Piltdown Man, cold fusion), and so on.

Position papers and essays of no longer than twenty manuscript pages are invited from scholars in all fields of literature, history, philosophy, and the arts. Along with analytical, interpretive, and historical scholarship, we are also interested in work that moves traditional forms of literary analysis into new styles of critical and creative writing. The editors also encourage collaborative work, notes submitted together as topical clusters or debates, and review essays on relevant books.

A respected forum since 1962 for English literary studies, ELN (English Language Notes) underwent a change in editorship and an extensive makeover in 2005. It is now a biannual journal devoted exclusively to special topics in all fields of literary and cultural studies. The new ELN is particularly determined to revive and reenergize its traditional commitment to shorter notes, often no more than three to four pages in print. This attribute of the journal provides a unique forum for cutting-edge scholarly debate and exchange in the humanities.

Please send double-spaced, 12-point font contributions and/or proposals in hard copy and on CD-ROM to:

Special Issue Editor, “Literature and Pseudoscience”
English Language Notes
University of Colorado, Boulder
226 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0226

Specific inquiries regarding issue 47.1 may be addressed to the issue editor, Katherine Eggert: (Katherine.Eggert@colorado.edu).

The deadline for submissions is November 1, 2008.