Deadline for submissions: January 30, 2017
Full name / name of organization: Tel Aviv University
Contact email: meyravko@post.tau.ac.il
REMINDER: Jewish-American Fiction and Magical Realism: Narrative Strategies
The editors are seeking contributors for a volume focused on narratological analysis of the magical realism genre in Jewish-American fiction.
Magical Realism – a mode of narration in which the fantastic is organically presented within the fabric of a realistic settings – has long been used in literature to explore issues of a mutable and conflicting nature. Consequently, Jewish-American magical realism was pioneered in the early stages of the 20th century by authors such as Bernard Malamud and Isaac Bashevis Singer, who depicted the possible conflict between ancient Jewish tradition and the American consumer culture. The tension between these two inherently different traditions has risen again, and is aptly depicted by an increasing number of young Jewish-American writers who often interject postmodern sensitivity into their narratives in the form of magical realism. These postmodern tendencies are evident in such narratological ploys as the unreliability of the narrator, the subversion of time and space and the creation of gaps in the text. In fact, contemporary Jewish-American magical realism often involves an intentional attempt to create a subversive reading experience as structural indication of the chasm evoked by the hyphenated identity. In the search to represent a sense of a split self, these authors often resort to the reconfiguration of the temporal-spatial axis of the narrative (displaced objects or subjects that reappear in different places and or times), the subversion of the narrative voice (dead or unreliable narrators) and the collapse of the continuity of the narrative (gaps in the sequence of events). The proposals, for chapters of approximately 6000 words (MLA Style), should focus on the topic of Jewish-American identity through narrative analysis of magical realism in short stories, novels, graphic novels and plays/drama.
We are particularly interested in chapters that engage the following authors, and we strongly encourage comparative essays based on several works by the same author:
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Bernard Malamud
Cynthia Ozick (The Messiah of Stockholm, The Puttermesser Papers)
Avram Davidson
Nicole Krauss (The History of Love, Great House)
Dara Horn (In the Image, The World to Come)
Alice Hoffman (The Museum of Extraordinary Things, Incantation)
Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay)
Jonathan Safran-Foer (Everything Is Illuminated)
Steve Stern (“The Tale of a Kite”, “Bruno’s Metamorphosis”, The Frozen Rabbi)
Joseph Skibell (A Blessing on the Moon)
Ben Marcus (The Flame Alphabet)
Mayla Goldberg (Bee Season)
Nathan Englander (“The Gilgul of Park Avenue”)
Art Spiegelman (Maus)
Tony Kushner (Angels in America)
The editors are pursuing a tier 1 academic publication venue. The selection process will therefore be a two-stage review process – an invitation to submit an essay based on your proposal and a final selection of chapters once the completed essays have been submitted.
THE DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS IS 30 JANUARY 2017, WITH DELIVERY OF COMPLETED ESSAYS BY 31 AUGUST 2017.
Please send the following by 30th January 2017:
A detailed 500-1000 words proposal for an original contribution (adding a preliminary outline to your proposal would be an advantage)
A 100 word bio (including selected publications)
Notifications will be sent to potential contributors by 28th February 2017
Please e-mail both editors:
Inbar Kaminsky, Ph.D. Tel Aviv University: inbar.kaminsky@gmail.com
Meyrav Koren-Kuik, Tel Aviv University: meyravko@post.tau.ac.il