This special issue focuses on the Plantationocene, which pertains to aspects of Western colonialism, geological discovery, massive deforestation, agricultural harvesting, and plant cultivation. It explores related theories and literary narratives of the Plantationocene from the angle of plant(ation)s in English and American literature. We particularly center on the 16th century after the Age of Discovery, when the West met the East, when the Western empires embarked on plant expeditions, plant collections, plant cultivations, and plant transactions from the Caribbean, the Americas, to Asia and Oceania, giving rise to plantation agricultural economy. We intend to reflect upon the effects of this huge-scale plantation production system with regard to colonial power, the natural environment, and literary writings.
This special issue welcomes submissions that explore how Anglo-American and Anglophone literature represents or responds to the massive production of plantations by Western imperialism. Topics include but are not confined to the following:
-Race representations in plantations
-Colonial violence in plantations
-Sexual performance in plantations
-Multispecies imagination in plantations
-Biopolitics in plantations
-Plant narratives in plantations
-Land policies and plant economy in plantations
-The human/nonhuman dual constructivism in plantations
-Globalism in plantations
-Plant mania, plant gothic, plant expeditions, plant medicine, plant sensory or more
Please submit the manuscript online at https://www.eala.org.tw/zh-hant/comment/online-%20submission , or email it to realtaiwan@gmail.com. The manuscript should be in Word format and well paged, include a Chinese and an English title, a Chinese abstract (350 to 400 words), an English abstract (200 to 250 words) as well as Chinese and English keywords (3 to 5 items). A cover letter should be attached, stating the author’s Chinese and English name, name and the address of his or her affiliation, as well as the corresponding contact information, address, email, and phone/ fax number.
A submission in Chinese should be no more than 20,000 words. A submission in English should be between 6,000 and 12,000 words (including works cited and footnotes). The paper should follow the 8th edition of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. All submitted papers will go through double-blind review process. There must be no indication of personal identity or other related information. If the paper contains any copyrighted material (such as photos or pictures), the author is solely responsible for obtaining written permission for the material.
