Below is the CfP for a special issue on the theme of ‚Conceptualising the North‘ for the autumn 2019 number of the journal Nordlit. We welcome both artistic and academic explorations of the theme. The format is open: you may propose articles (6000-8000 words), opinion pieces, reviews, visual art, interviews, dialogues, photographs, audio, scores, multimedia, pieces of creative writing, or another format.

Nordlit is a fully peer-reviewed open-access journal published by UiT Tromsø (Norway) and Septentrio Academic Publishing. There are no publication charges. For an overview of the journal, visit its website here.

The main language of the journal is English, but we will also accept German, French, Swedish, Danish, Samí, or Norwegian. The deadline for final submissions is March 31, 2019. However, we ask you to send us an abstract or proposal for consideration in advance of the deadline, and no later than 16th December 2018, to aid in planning the volume as a whole.

We look forward to receiving your ideas, proposals, and submissions.

Guest editors

Kate Maxwell, UiT The Arctic University of Norway

Hanne Hammer Stien, UiT The Arctic University of Norway

Lilli Mittner, UiT The Arctic University of Norway

This special issue seeks to unite theoretical and artistic understandings of ‘the North’. As an area that is at once forbidding and fragile, with stark contrasts, the northern regions of the planet have long fascinated artists and scientists. As climate change threatens the ecology of these regions, their future is unknown.

This special issue will offer a combination of disciplines and approaches. Studies of the North that exclude artistic or indigenous responses to the landscape are at best incomplete, and at worst discriminatory. The scope of this issue is therefore deliberately broad – taking full advantage of the online publication concept – in order to include underrepresented voices (including those of the indigenous population, immigrants, and disabled authors and artists). The collection will also be gender-balanced, and we encourage LGBTQI+ authors and artists to submit.

Possible themes include, but are not limited to:

• The construction and representation of the North in art and culture
• The geographic north versus the concept of North
• The North in media, music, novels, history books, video games, and social media
• Representations of the North by and for children
• Mapping the North
• Accessing the North
• Tourism and travel in the high North
• The aurora borealis
• The flora and fauna of the North
• Environmental issues and conservation
• Is it ‚grim up North‘?
• The global north and global south
• Northern (geo-)politics
• Indigeneity, immigration, gender, and cultural diversity in the North
• Queering the North
• The role of technology in the North
• Living, learning, and creating in the North
• The history of the North
• Poles of light and dark
• The role of the North in war and in peacetime
• Exploration, conquering, the ‚final frontier‘
• Representations of the North from within and without
• The North as centre, periphery, and boundary

Please send your abstracts no later than 16th December 2018 to kate.maxwell@uit.no. The deadline for completed pieces is March 31 2019.

For written submissions, please follow the journal’s author guidelines when preparing your manuscript for submission. The guidelines can be accessed here. For audio-visual or other submissions, please contact kate.maxwell@uit.no to discuss requirements.

Nordlit is a peer-reviewed open-access journal in cultural and literary criticism, published by the Department of Language and Culture, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, in cooperation with Septentrio Academic Publishing. The journal is ranked as a level 1 academic publication channel in the Norwegian research database CRISTIN. It is also listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ.org)