CFP: Palgrave Handbook of Phenomenology and Literature

Call for Proposals: Palgrave Handbook of Phenomenology and Literature

The Palgrave Handbook of Phenomenology and Literature invites scholars and advanced Ph.D. students to submit chapter proposals for inclusion in the two-volume work. While the phenomenological engagement of literature was a major field of inquiry in France, Germany, and North America from the 1930s to the 1960s, the rise of structuralism and then poststructuralism questioned this approach. In recent years, however, phenomenological perspectives on literature have been enjoying a renaissance, one the Handbook seeks to express and advance.

The Handbook seeks to explore a wide range of phenomenological interactions with concrete works of literature, methods of literary theory, and canonical questions of philosophy. In doing so, the Handbook will reflect on the phenomenology of literature, the phenomenology in literature, and the mutually critical relationships between phenomenology, literary theory, and philosophy.

Chapters will be 4000-7000 words, inclusive of bibliography and notes. Successful chapters will be accessible to upper-level undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty in fields of literature and continental philosophy, primarily, but also readers from theology and religious studies who are concerned with sacred literature and analytical philosophers working on aesthetics.

We welcome proposals on any topic of phenomenology and literature, and we are especially on the lookout for chapters in the following areas:

• chapters on major figures in the field: both those well-known for work on literary questions (e.g. Ingarden, Heidegger) and also those who, while less well-known for their work in this area, still did important work in the field (e.g. Fanon, de Beauvoir);
• chapters on how literary topics (e.g. metaphor, plot, genres) can benefit from, and benefit, phenomenological reflection;
• chapters on how phenomenology can enter into generative dialogues with movements in literary theory (e.g. new historicism, postcolonial theory, Queer theory, posthumanism);
• chapters on how phenomenological intersections with literary phenomena can cast light on broader philosophical problems (e.g. skepticism, tensions between faith and reason, or moral dilemmas).

Please submit your title and abstract proposals of no more than 300 words, as well as a current CV, by December 1, 2023, to Jeffrey McCurry ([email protected]), whom you can also contact with any questions.

The timeline is below.

• December 1, 2023 - Abstracts due
• February 1, 2024 – Notification of Preliminary Acceptance or Rejection
• Feb. 1, 2025 – Completed Chapters Due
• July 1, 2025 – Editorial Reviews Completed
• Jan. 1, 2026 – Revisions Completed, Final Approval of Chapters, Manuscript Submitted
• Spring 2026 – Copy Edits and Proofs
• Fall 2026 (hopefully in time for SPEP) – Volume Publication