Forthcoming Issues

Cultural Perceptions of Animals: Old and New
Abstract Deadline: October 1, 2023
Article Submission Deadline: May 1, 2024

Animal studies have evolved over the years with a particular line of inquiry in mind, that of how representing animals can help shape humans’ understanding of nature and themselves in literature, art, and the sciences. Since time immemorial, animals have been prefigured in various forms of the arts. The initial stories and tales early humans chose to depict on cave walls were those of animals. This issue of Alif invites contributions from different disciplines and cultural backgrounds to explore the ways in which animals have been put in conversation with the contexts they reside in and with us as human beings. Contributions may address the way animals have been represented in fables, folk-tales, or religious mythology, among others; how animals open up a nuanced space for representation and embodiment culturally, politically, and socially during times of censorship, enlightenment, etc.; and how they spurred humans’ scientific and intellectual pursuit of knowledge during the modern era. Alif also encourages contributors to question the extent to which animal representations and depictions (in many forms) have come to develop and diversify the ways we conceive of the world and identify with it.

Article topics might include, but are not restricted to, the following:

• Animal symbolism and censorship
• Mythological animals
• Literary representations of animals (allegorical, satirical)
• Animals and the sacred: Ceremony and sacrifice
• Perceiving animals in popular and folk culture
• Human-animal encounters beyond the Anthropocene
• Animals and Ecology
• Animal rights, vegetarianism, and human exploitation
• Anthropological and cultural perceptions of animals
• Animality as a metaphor for human desire
• Scientific classification and representation of animals
• Philosophical views on animals

Key Dates

Alif is a refereed, annual, multi-lingual, and multi-disciplinary journal published by the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the American University in Cairo. Each issue revolves around a theme or a problem, bringing together the views and approaches of scholars from all over the world.

Alif is electronically available on JSTOR and indexed on a number of prestigious databases, including Scopus, MLA International Bibliography, SAGE, Index Islamicus, EBSCO, Project MUSE, and Literature Resource Center (Gale).

Submission instructions: An initial 300-word abstract should be submitted by 1 October 2023, accompanied by the author’s email address, telephone number, and postal address. Articles based on accepted abstracts should be between 6,000 and 8,000 words and may be submitted in Arabic, English, or French by electronic mail to [email protected], together with an abstract of 100 words and a 50-word biographical note on the contributor. Authors should consult the MLA Handbook 9^th edition for style in preparing their manuscripts.

Only original articles that do not duplicate previously published work, including the authors, and are not under review by another journal or collection will be considered.

The Body: Aesthetics, Perceptions, Representations
Abstract Deadline: October 1, 2024
Article Submission Deadline: May 1, 2025

The body can be a vessel for the self, a subject of power structures, an object that can be manipulated and stimulated, and a site of cultural, religious, and political practices and conflicts. This issue of Alif aims to problematize three concepts related to the body: what constitutes an “ideal” body, how are certain body images in turn valued and propagated over others, and how does this reflect on the way we perceive bodies? For instance, how are certain bodies centralized, marginalized, and/or fragmented culturally? What role does new media play in the formulation of such representations? How are beauty and ugliness, ability and disability, and health and ailment/deformity presented in literary and visual arts? How are stereotypes about feminine and masculine bodies created, reinforced, and disseminated? How do bodies get commodified, physically or metaphorically, within certain power relations? This issue of Alif invites original, both analytical and theoretical, contributions that explore the body in a variety of cultural productions. Contributions from various fields of the humanities and social sciences, including philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and media studies, are welcome.

Article topics might include but are not limited to:

• The “ideal” body and how it is constituted
• The impact of literary, artistic, and (social) media representations on body perceptions
• The body as a site of racial, ethnic, gendered, and sexual conflicts
• Violence, torture, and corporal punishment
• (De)Colonizing the body
• Ability and disability in literature and visual arts
• Illness, healing, and medicine
• The body as a commodity
• Beautifying/mutilating the body
• The body is a site of transactions (prostitution, human trafficking, seeking refuge, etc.)
• Shaping femininity and masculinity in fashion and advertisements
• Religion, mythology, and the body
• Burial and mummification rituals
• Philosophical approaches to the body

Key Dates

Alif is a refereed, annual, multi-lingual, and multi-disciplinary journal published by the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the American University in Cairo. Each issue revolves around a theme or a problem, bringing together the views and approaches of scholars from all over the world.

Alif is electronically available on JSTOR and indexed on a number of prestigious databases, including Scopus, MLA International Bibliography, SAGE, Index Islamicus, EBSCO, Project Muse, and Literature Resource Center (GALE).

Submission instructions: An initial 300-word abstract should be submitted by 1 October 2024, accompanied by the author’s email address, telephone number, and postal address. Articles based on accepted abstracts should be between 6,000 and 8,000 words and may be submitted in Arabic, English, or French by electronic mail to [email protected], together with an abstract of 100 words and a 50-word biographical note on the contributor. Authors should consult the Modern Language Association (MLA) Handbook 9^th edition for style in preparing their manuscript.

Only original articles that do not duplicate previously published work, including the authors, and are not under review by another journal or collection will be considered.

The Global South: Cultural Studies and Critical Perspectives

Abstract deadline: October 1, 2025

Article submission deadline: May 1, 2026

The Global South has spurred new comparative scholarship in cultural studies. Recent scholarship on the Global South in literary and cultural studies has foregrounded South-South connections and directions that have heretofore been eclipsed, obscured, or neglected in traditional postcolonial studies. It has recovered a history of literary exchanges and new directions in the field. World literature, global history, international law, and universal human rights, among other concepts that imply inclusive universality are critiqued, deconstructed, and revisited in light of these new directions. This issue of Alif seeks to contribute to the field from the lens of the Global South. It invites contributors to consider the implications of Global South perspectives on their areas of interest; the theoretical and critical frameworks they utilize; and to rewrite the Eurocentric, global narratives that they contend with. Contributions may relate to national literatures and transnational movements; the comparative study of literatures and cultures in the Global South; exchanges, solidarities, frameworks of comparison, models of reading, and archives; how movements and international literary networks such as Bandung-era Afro-Asian solidarity or Latin American and Caribbean theoretical input open new conceptualizations and criticism; and how to rethink comparatism through Third World internationalisms. Critical and theoretical contributions that address issues related to the Global South from various fields of the humanities and social sciences, including philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and media studies, are also welcome.

Article topics might include but are not limited to:

• Literary and artistic encounters from the Global South
• South-South relations and exchange
• Literature from the Global South and the world literary canon
• Ideas in motion
• Gender and Feminism from Global South perspectives
• Colonization and decolonization
• Third World internationalisms
• Theory from the Global South
• Revisiting human rights
• Migration, asylum, and diaspora

Key Dates

Alif is a refereed, annual, multi-lingual, and multi-disciplinary journal published by the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the American University in Cairo. Each issue revolves around a theme or a problematic, bringing together the views and approaches of scholars from all over the world.

Alif is electronically available on JSTOR and indexed on a number of prestigious databases including Scopus, MLA International Bibliography, SAGE, Index Islamicus, EBSCO, Project Muse, and Literature Resource Center (GALE).

Submission instructions: An initial 300-word abstract should be submitted by 1 October 2025, accompanied by the author’s email address, telephone number, and postal address. Articles based on accepted abstracts should be between 6,000 and 8,000 words and may be submitted in Arabic, English, or French by electronic mail to [email protected], together with an abstract of 100 words and a 50-word biographical note on the contributor. Authors should consult MLA Handbook (9^th edition) for style in preparing their manuscript.

Only original articles that do not duplicate previously published work, including the author’s, and are not under review by another journal or collection will be considered. 

Correspondence

Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, Dept. of English and Comparative Literature

American University in Cairo, 113 Kasr Al Aini Street, PO Box 2511

Cairo 11511, Egypt

Tel.: (+202) 2797-5107

E-mail: [email protected]

https://huss.aucegypt.edu/alif