Cluster Call for Papers: Hauntings
We invite submissions for an ASAP/Review cluster on haunting in the contemporary arts. In recent years, we have seen a significant number of art works across artistic media that revolve around the process of haunting, including Jesmyn Ward’s Sing Unburied Sing, Hari Kunzru’s White Tears, Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s A Ghost in the Throat, Fred D’Aguiar’s Feeding The Ghosts, Andrea Actis’ Grey All Over, Tyehimba Jess’ Olio and M. NourbeSe Philip’s Zong! The Gothic genre has long been haunted, from Mary Shelley’s famous nightmare in the Alps to the lighter-spirited spooks of the popular sitcom, Ghosts. But ghosts are now seen to stalk other cinematic genres and aesthetics. We see this spectral surge in works including David Lowery’s A Ghost Story, Mati Diop’s Atlantique, and Remi Weekes’ His House. Literary criticism and theory have also shown a tendency towards the spectral—as both ontology and metaphorics; Avery Gordon’s Ghostly Matters, Christina Sharpe’s In The Wake, Esther Peeran’s The Spectral Metaphor, David L. Eng and Shinhee Han’s Racial Melancholia, and several works by Fred Moten and Stefano Harney bear collective witness to a broader critical turn—or return–-to the haunt as a subject of animating, or at least un-dead, interest. How should we come to terms with the experience of haunting, and what can it tell us about the arts of the present (and their contemporary analytics)? How does the strange temporal jag figured by the appearance of the ghost place a kind of pressure on the very concept of “the present”? What is the relationship of haunting to other forms of lingering or “present” absence, as inscribed at the heart of traumatic histories of racial or sexual violence? How do different media or art forms haunt each other, and haunt us? In this sense, the question of haunting conjures the specter of debates surrounding ways of reading, and how we relate to texts. We welcome submissions that broadly consider haunting, hauntedness, and haunts across the arts, including painting and visual art, as well as cinema, television and literature.
Email Emmy Waldman (Virginia Tech) and David Hering (University of Liverpool) at and to submit an abstract of no more than 300 words and a short biographical statement (no more than 75 words) by April 30, 2024. Potential contributors will be notified by May 31, 2024 and they will then have to submit their essays (1500–3000 words) by September 30, 2024.
We are actively seeking pitches for two new review formats: Provocations and Uncanny Juxtapositions.
Provocations brings together multiple scholars and/or artists to consider a recent scholarly monograph or edited volume by situating it within a field and posing questions for future inquiry. Provocations approach a chosen book with a focus on what comes next: what lines of thought are opened up by the book, and what questions does it leave for future research in the field? A prospective guest editor should pitch a title to the Reviews Editors as well as the names of 3–4 other scholars they have invited to join the conversation. In its final, published form, a Provocation will include an approximately 300-word capsule summary of the book written by the guest editor followed by a similar-length paragraph from each of the invited provokers.
In an Uncanny Juxtaposition, a reviewer puts together two very recent works of art, creative production, or literature—or two scholarly monographs on arts of the present—that would otherwise seem to have no connection, traversing the so-called high/low divide, and transcending medium. The review brings out unexpected intimacies and resonances between them. How does a new pop song re-frame a recent gallery exhibit at MoMA and vice versa? How does a book in media studies and a book in architectural theory—two books with minimal overlap in citation networks—work toward a common thesis or intervention? Uncanny Juxtapositions should be 1,500 to 2,000 words.
Please contact the Reviews Editors at reviews [at] asapjournal.com to inquire about either of these formats. There is no deadline to pitch these formats. In your email, indicate the format you are interested in and please include a brief bio (50 words), including prior publications. ASAP/Review is committed to boosting the voices of emerging and contingent students and scholars; if you don’t have prior publications, please just tell us why you think you’re the right person for this particular review.