CFP Zombies Spec Issue of Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory (Papers by 9/30/13)

UPDATE (Revised Deadline): The Cultural and Political Life of Zombies

full name / name of organization: 

Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory

contact email: 

dweiss@ycp.edu

The Cultural and Political Life of Zombies

Does it suddenly seem like the living dead are everywhere? Lumbering past cyborgs, mutants, werewolves, and, yes, even vampires, zombies are the monsters du jour. Zombies have taken up residence in the pages of fiction (literary hits such as Colson Whitehead’s Zone One, The Walking Dead comic books, pulp zombie apocalypse narratives such as World War Z, and young adult fiction such as Warm Bodies) and inhabit our various screens, from television shows such as AMC’s ubiquitous The Walking Dead, to movies (from 1968’s Night of the Living Dead to the more recent 28 Days Later, I Am Legend, and Shaun of the Dead), and video games (Resident Evil, Left 4 Dead). We have zombie runs, zombie computers, Nazi zombies, and zombie banks. Even zombie strippers and zombie studies. They have come from space, from nature, from biotech labs, and the dark recesses of the globe. They even have their own CDC website and inhabit a growing area of scholarly debate over the status of philosophical zombies. We’re seemingly surrounded by the living dead.

What are zombies and why are they now so prevalent across both pop culture and academia? The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory proposes a special issue to critically examine the resurgence of interest in the zombie as a cultural and political figure. We invite papers from across the disciplines that explore diverse aspects of this vibrant cultural phenomenon and address the current popularity of the living dead.
Completed papers must be submitted by September 30, 2013. Authors will be notified of acceptance by November 30, 2013. Projected publication: Spring, 2014. Please submit papers to dweiss@ycp.edu.
Submit electronic copies of completed papers (3000 – 6000 words). Abstracts cannot be considered. Papers will be subject to a double blind review by a selection committee. Include your name, paper title and contact information on a separate page. Include the paper title but not your name on a header or footer on each numbered page of the paper itself. The papers must be previously unpublished in any format.

The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory is a peer-reviewed journal devoted to both disciplinary and interdisciplinary scholarship of a cutting-edge nature that deals broadly with the phenomenon of religious and cultural theory. Subfields include, but are not limited to, philosophical and cultural theory, theological studies, postcolonial and globalization theory, religious studies, literary theory, cultural studies, ethnic, area, and gender studies, communications, semiotics, and linguistics. No term papers, religious advocacy pieces, unsolicited book reviews or opinion pieces, etc. will be considered. The Journal is FREE of charge, is published three times a year (Winter, Spring and Fall).

All manuscripts submitted, or revised, for publication must be in Microsoft Word format. No hard copies of manuscripts will be accepted. The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory uses the Chicago Manual of Style for all published reviews and articles. The basic elements of the CMoS can be found athttp://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/717/01/.

Of particular importance:

• All notes must be footnotes. Internal references, i.e. page numbers for a previous footnote citation, are allowed.
•  Citations should follow CMS, documentation one. [See especially 15.83ff., 15.217ff., 15.244.] The use of p. or pp. should be avoided. Here are some example footnotes:

  8. Slavoj Zizek, The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2003), 5.

  
  

  9. Carl Raschke, "Bataille's Gift," The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory 5.1 (December 2003), 7.

• 10. Steven G. Smith, Review of Levinas and the Philosophy of Religion, by Jeffrey L. Kosky, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 71.2 (June 2003), 469.
• Bibliographies or lists of references should not be used unless absolutely necessary. Citations in footnoting should be written so as to be sufficient.
• All articles or reviews must have the title, first and last name of the author, and institutional affiliation at the top of the article - flush left.
• Do not in the body of the text give acknowledgements. Do so in a footnote.
• All paragraphs must have a blank space between them and start flush left without indentation. Paragraph numeration is no longer necessary for the JCRT.

Once the article is accepted for publication, it is the author's responsibility to resubmit the review or article using the standard journal style within twenty days after notification of acceptance. At that time the author must also submit a brief biographical sketch of themselves two or three sentences in length.