CFP: Vernacular Responses to Covid-19 Pandemic (Folklorica)

Deadline: October 31, 2020

Folklorica, the Journal of the Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Folklore Association, is accepting submissions for a special issue on vernacular responses to the Covid-19 Pandemic.

The Covid-19 Pandemic has sent a ripple through a fraught and interconnected world, drastically shifting global currents towards stasis and seclusion. Countries have shut-down, hospitals have been overwhelmed, people have been relegated to their homes and the world has ground to a halt in a number of ways. It is in such times of crisis as these that folklore becomes a tool to fill the gaps of indeterminacy, to provide comfort, to attempt to explain how and why these events are unfolding and, in more insidious manifestations, to cast blame for the crisis on various real or imagined parties.

We at SEEFA are interested to hear how various parts of the Eastern European and Eurasian world are handling these events and what productive, vernacular arts and practices are flowering in this unusual yet fertile soil. We invite calls for the submission of original articles and field reports regarding Eastern European and Eurasian vernacular responses to the pandemic for an upcoming special issue of Folklorica. Given the scope of our field and the many angles from which articles could approach the material, we are aiming to receive numerous shorter pieces (theoretical musings, preliminary fieldwork reports, smaller articles on specific iterations, and other short, quality work) that will serve as an expanded forum on Eastern European folkloric approaches to the pandemic. 

We welcome proposals/abstracts by 31 October 2020 and completed submissions by December 31, 2020 for inclusion in the special issue. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Folklorica’s Editor, Dr. Jeanmarie Rouhier-Willoughby (j.rouhier@uky.edu) or the guest co-editor, Dr. Dorian Jurić (juricdb@gmail.com).