Call for Papers: Literature (after) the pandemic
Literature (after) the pandemic
Invitation to the 14th issue of “Czytanie Literatury. "Łódź Literary Studies”
We live in a post-pandemic era when the threat of coronavirus seems to be a thing of the past. But we remember the time of deserted streets, closed schools, offices, shops and cinemas. And human faces hidden behind masks. We remember subsequent lockdowns, locking us in our homes, uncertainty and fear for our own fate and that of our loved ones. But how do we remember? As images from a quickly receding past? Terrifying, it's true, but fortunately it's gone, almost obliterated today, more and more distant. Or, on the contrary, as an experience that is still relevant and relevant? Has the return to the so-called normality erased the wounds of the pandemic, or are we permanently marked by the trauma of those events?
Reflecting on how the pandemic has changed Europe, Bulgarian political scientist Ivan Krastev noted: “although major epidemics are not that rare, for some reason their arrival always takes us by surprise. They reset our world just like wars and revolutions, and yet, for some reason, they do not leave comparable traces in our memory. In turn, the editors of the volume To come back. The Past and Future of the Pandemic, released in 2022, asked questions “about the meaning of what we see: has capitalism been suspended before our eyes?; has the state returned to its duties?; society rebuilt?” And they replied: “Today we know that the answer to all these questions is no.”
And what is the balance of that time in literature? This is a good time to think about it - in the spring of 2025, five years will have passed since the first reports of an increase in COVID-19 cases. What has the experience of the coronavirus pandemic brought to public space (book promotions, author meetings, debates, etc.)? How has it changed the way readers interact with literature? How did it affect the creators? Has it become an inspiration to take up new topics and look for new poetics? Did lockdown and forced isolation facilitate the implementation of artistic projects? And the literature itself – how did it “use” the pandemic? What image of it has been/are brought by documentary, essay, prose and poetic texts? Have new aesthetics and languages of description emerged? Or were previously known poetics and conventions used to "tell" the pandemic? How did genre literature function then – did it annex current issues or was it still primarily an escapist proposition? So does the pandemic have the potential and power to influence both the literary field and the implementation of individual projects? It is also worth considering whether it is possible to notice attempts in the texts to work through individual and collective mourning for the victims of the pandemic? Or has the memory and grief for the deceased not been expressed yet because perhaps the distance between us and those events is too small and literature's response to mourning is silence?
In the context of the above questions, we are interested in the interpretation of specific literary texts representing various genres, aesthetics and styles. The issue of updating canonical texts (e.g. Decameron, The Plague) in relation to experiences related to the coronavirus also seems important here. We are also interested in general approaches, attempts at synthesis and theoretical studies devoted to the phenomenon of the pandemic in literature (Polish and foreign).
We are waiting for preliminary declarations of topics and short abstracts until December 31, 2024, and for finished articles until March 31, 2025. We also invite you to send proposals to the regular sections of the magazine: articles, discussions, reviews, interviews. Please send all applications to one of the following addresses:
Krystyna Pietrych pietrych@op.pl
Anita Jarzyna anitajarzyna@gmail.com
