Call for Papers for Issue 21 (July 2023)
Submission Deadline: April 30, 2023
Guest Editors:
Eva-Maria Windberger (University of Trier)
Monika Leipelt-Tsai (National Chengchi University)
East Asia and Europe between Innovation and Tradition, Literary and Literally
In many fields success is based on the knowledge of both tradition as well as innovation. Going back to etymology, the Latin noun “innovātiō” signifies not only renewal and innovation but alteration. In literature and in language the notions of innovation and tradition often seem to be intertwined. For example, author, text, and reader are concepts that are not autonomous but related to what has come before; or to speak with Roland Barthes, they are “echo chambers” because they echo one another. The idea of a lone genius creating a work of literature seems to belong to a forgone era. In linguistics the innovation of a neologism can often be traced back to snippets of traditional terms. At the same time, the very fact that scientific research is able to explore and report new things over and over again proves that we as scholars deal with changeability and innovation. While innovation usually supersedes tradition, sometimes innovative thinking has to go back to the roots (e.g., the global climate change indicates that traditional techniques have their value). In past and present times, political leaders in the East and in the West rely on myth as a means of legitimacy and superimpose newly invented narratives of alleged traditions on a current situation to bolster their political power. We may ask: What is tradition and what is innovation? In many discourses the boundaries between innovation and tradition become blurred. This raises questions about the intricate connection between innovation and tradition, in particular when considering the acuteness of relations between East Asia and Europe, both literary and literally.
interface –Journal of European Languages and Literatures is inviting original unpublished papers written in English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, or Italian for interface Issue 21, to be published in July 2023.
We welcome contributions from established researchers, postdoctoral and early-career scholars, and postgraduate students.
Topics may include (but are not limited to)
Literary negotiations of innovation and tradition between East Asia and Europe;
The development of literature between innovation and tradition (“echo chambers”);
The poetics and rhetoric of innovation and tradition (e.g., narrative features, literary devices, etc.);
Language(s) between/of innovation and tradition (neologisms, translations, theoretical methods, etc.);
Performing innovation and/or tradition; innovative vs. traditional theatre practices;
Literary didactics between innovation and tradition;
Reading and writing as innovative and/or traditional practices;
Cultural appropriation as tradition or innovation;
Narrative ethics and the depiction of innovation (e.g., in speculative fiction, science fiction; ecocriticism, literature and the ethno-anthropological discourse, global climate change, human rights);
Social traditions and social innovations in literary texts, in films, TV series, and the arts (e.g., in terms of ethnic/gender/class diversity, social exclusion/othering);
The challenges and limits of literary innovation and/or tradition.