boot stepping on flowers
Kashmiri Futures

This special issue inaugurates a scholarly and creative conversation that seeks to detach the future of Kashmir from the narrative, aesthetic, and political frames of powerful nation-states that have sought to keep Kashmiris confined to a long and seemingly enduring colonial present. It seeks, moreover, to inspire radical imaginations of possible futures in danger of foreclosure by occupying states, and asks us to think about occupation as a temporal as well as spatial regime.

ceramic sculpture of six medical masks hanging in a row on wooden pegs
Pandemic! COVID-19 and Literary Studies

What does the study of literature bring to our understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic? In this ELN issue the contributors reflect on and seek to make sense of one of the most disorienting and tragic phenomena of our lives. Much has been written about the pandemic from a scientific point of view, but as scholars of language and literature, the contributors investigate the meaning that literature and culture can add to our evolving understanding of the profoundly human dimensions of a crisis that has taken millions of lives and caused lasting physical, emotional, and psychological damage to millions more. The issue examines new literary narratives and frames them in relation to the longer history of cultural responses to the influenza pandemic of 1918-20, the outbreak of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and of SARS in 2002-4, and other public health crises. It explores narratives of environmental collapse and engages with scientific data, public health issues, and national and global policy making. Finally, it addresses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on literary studies in the academy.

a woman and two mannequins in a clothing atelier
Fashion’s Borders

This issue takes up the complex relationship between clothing and place and examines the transcultural flow of styles, materials, garments, and accessories within and across national borders. With essays on topics that range from the global clothing chain in Mauritius to the significance of Emily Dickinson’s shawl, the issue seeks to illustrate how fashions are culturally redefined when they travel and what role the circulation of sartorial objects plays across historical periods, disciplines, and cultural traditions.

Painting of man with absinthe glass by Picasso
Addictions

Addiction is at the forefront of global conversations on biopolitics, yet its history is only beginning to be uncovered. This special issue investigates addiction’s long history and offers new approaches to understanding this familiar phenomenon. Scholars from a variety of elds, including literary studies, history, philosophy, and medicine, reassess what counts as addiction and where we might nd it: addiction can be an expression of devotion, a form of authorial inspiration, or a prejudicial phenomenon, particularly targeting racialized groups through imperial and settler colonial policies on drug use.

A respected forum of criticism and scholarship in literary and cultural studies since 1962, the recent incarnation of English Language Notes – ELN – is dedicated to pushing the edge of scholarship in literature and related fields in new directions. Broadening its reach geographically and transhistorically, ELN’s semi-annual issues provide a wide-ranging print and digital forum of topical clusters, roundtable debates, artistic collaborations, reviews, and traditional scholarly essays.

PLEASE NOTE

We are not accepting unsolicited submissions at this time. 

Forthcoming Issues
  • Indigenous Ecologies
    62.1, Spring 2024
    Bonnie Etherington and Delali Kumavie, Special Issue Editors