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Special issues

Browse all special issues from a/b: Auto/Biography Studies.

All issues
Autobiography & Neuroscience
Volume 13, Issue 1, 1998 pages 1-158
Cross-Cultural Autobiography
Volume 12, Issue 2, 1997 pages 147-299
RETHINKING RUSSIAN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Volume 11, Issue 2, 1996 pages 3-172
Terms of Identity: Essays on the Theoretical Terminology of Lifewriting
Volume 10, Issue 1, 1995 pages 1-163
Canons and Traditions
Volume 9, Issue 2, 1994 pages 163-315
FEMINIST BIOGRAPHY
Volume 8, Issue 2, 1993 pages 155-319
Native American Identities and Autobiography
Volume 7, Issue 2, 1992 pages 157-313
Illness, Disability, and Lifewriting
Volume 6, Issue 1, 1991 pages 1-151
Autobiography and Mysticism
Volume 6, Issue 2, 1991 pages 153-301
Constructing the Subject in Nineteenth-Century Autobiography
Volume 5, Issue 2, 1990 pages 85-185

Special issue information

Proposal Guidelines: Special Issues, Essay Clusters, and Forums

The editors of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies welcome proposals for special issues, essay clusters, and forums. Proposals are typically submitted by a scholar or collaborative team that has prior experience in publishing and/or editing scholarship in the field.

Special Issues include an introductory essay contributed by the guest editor(s) and scholarly essays related to the issue theme, which are selected and edited by the guest editor(s).

Special issues may also include one or more of the following sections, decided upon together by the guest editor(s) and the editorial team at a/b:

  • a methodological essay for “The Process” section;
  • a pedagogical essay for “The How Would You Teach It?” section;
  • a solicited reflection;
  • a solicited contribution to the “What’s Next?” section—which is typically written by a senior scholar and is related to the future/s of the theme discussed in the special issue;
  • and/or a forum.

An Essay Cluster is a shorter version of a special issue and may contain any of the same components listed above. Typically, an essay cluster includes three to four contributions and an introductory essay contributed by the guest editor(s).

The editors of a/b define a Forum as a collection of eight to twelve shorter essays (3,000 to 4,000 words) on a single author, theme, or theory. The forum is meant to put into conversation multiple authors on a topic that is especially timely, underexplored, or would particularly benefit from such a multifaceted approach. A forum submission may be made as a standalone piece or may be incorporated as part of a special issue or essay cluster.

Proposals for special issues, essay clusters, or forums should include:
  1. a cover letter that explains clearly and in detail the proposed topic and its significance as well as the prior experience of guest editor(s) that will allow them to undertake the proposed project;
  2. Draft Call for Papers or detailed overview of proposed content, as warranted; and
  3. Curriculum Vita for all guest editor(s).

All proposals for special issues, essay clusters, or forums should be submitted to the General Editor, Ricia Anne Chansky, at [email protected].


Reviews of a|b's special issue on African American Life Writing ( 27.1, ed. Eric D. Lamore) available in:
  • Miscelánea: A Journal of English and American Studies - by Margarita Carretero González
    'the interdisciplinary nature of this volume reveals the long and fruitful road travelled in the areas of African American autobiography and literary criticism since the eighties'

  • American Studies in Scandinavia - by Liz Kella
    'Lamore views the current issue as forming a collective response to subsequent critiques of these early delimitations of the field, and indeed, in dialogue with earlier scholarship and theory, the volume as a whole expands the field in terms of subject matter, method, and theory'

  • Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies - by Ted Bailey
    'a new subtle shift in direction can already be detected in the subject matter of many of the articles [in this special issue] that deal with the late twentieth and early twenty-first-century'