European and Italian EcoGothic in the Long 19th Century

Proposals are invited for a special issue of Gothic Studies, to be edited by David Del Principe (Montclair State University) and William Hughes (Bath Spa University) which will consider EcoGothic approaches to European and Italian literature in the long nineteenth century.

Luigi Capuana; Carlo Collodi; Arthur Conan Doyle; Antonio Fogazzaro; H. Rider Haggard; Henry James; Vernon Lee; J. Sheridan Le Fanu; Cesare Lombroso; Arthur Machen; Paolo Mantegazza; Edgar Allan Poe; Mary Shelley; Bram Stoker; Ann Radcliffe; Matilde Serao; Robert Louis Stevenson; Ugo Tarchetti and the Scapigliati; H. G. Wells (only a list of suggested authors).

The editors seek submissions that employ EcoGothic approaches – in particular, Ecofeminist and Vegetarian Critical theory – to focus on the nonhuman animal, evolving (non-)anthropocentric notions of species identity, especially in relation to flesh consumption, food, gender, and race paradigms, monstrous hybridity, and the construction of nation in the Industrial Era. Other issues which might be explored within this framework include metaphors of animal slaughter, populational, evolutionary, and criminal discourses as inscribed on the nonhuman body, and agricultural and environmental issues as addressed by reformist ideologies such as spiritualism, antivivisectionism, and temperance. The editors keenly encourage submissions that bring together works by Gothic authors, such as British and Italian, that are generally not approached from a transnational perspective.

Proposals of no more than 200 words should be submitted to both editors by 30 September 2011. Publication is anticipated in 2013, and a deadline for completed work (5,000-7,000 word articles) will be advised as soon as the issue is finalised.

Please send your abstract as an electronic attachment to:

Dr. David Del Principe
Dickson Hall 367
Department of Spanish & Italian
Montclair State University
Montclair, NJ 07043-1699
delprinciped@mail.montclair.edu

Professor William Hughes
Newton Building
Department of English Literature
Bath Spa University
Newton Park, Bath
BA2 9BN UK
w.hughes@bathspa.ac.uk