Call for Papers

Call for Papers

The Eudora Welty Review invites essays (6,500-10,000 words) and notes of general interest (1,500-3,500 words) to Welty studies for the Spring 2024 issue.

            The 2024 EWR will feature a special cluster dedicated to Welty and Material Culture. A daring writer, accomplished photographer, and avid consumer of varying forms of “high” and “low” culture, Welty’s opus keenly incorporates material artifacts as she examines the relationship between individuals and communities and their material world. Her fiction often includes veritable shopping lists of objects—consider Sister’s roster of ragtag items packed for the P.O. or the motley assortment in The Ponder Heart of Uncle Daniel’s “things . . . that he’s given away.” Always attuned to “art’s responsibility” for “[m]aking reality real,” Welty’s writer’s eye is both clear sighted and critical in its exploration of the tangible–irrespective of time and place–as well as the social construction of identity (regional and national) and the (re)production and polemic uses of material culture. For this special cluster in EWR, the editors seek submissions that consider Welty’s engagement with the material world broadly, including examples in her fiction, essays, and photographs. Topics might include but are not limited to objects such as clothing, cosmetics, detritus, found objects, furniture, monuments, musical instruments, textiles, toys, and works of art. Submissions might also explore conspicuous consumption, consumer culture, the objective correlative, gender and performance, thing theory, and trash culture. Articles from interdisciplinary perspectives—history, art, multimedia, philosophy, etc.—are especially encouraged. Send any queries to co-editor Rebecca Harrison (rharriso@westga.edu) or guest editor Katie Frye (Katie.Frye@pepperdine.edu).