The Routledge Companion to Ernest Hemingway
The Routledge Literature Companions feature newly-commissioned work from an international team of contributors in exciting areas of literary studies. The essays in this volume, written in clear and jargon-free prose, are intended for both students and scholars, providing a comprehensive overview while introducing emerging scholarship. The Routledge Companion to Ernest Hemingway, edited by Verna Kale, is currently under contract for delivery in 2025.
The editor is seeking proposals for chapters on a variety of topics related to Hemingway's work and world. Proposals on any aspect of Hemingway studies will be considered, but papers on the following topics are particularly desired:
- Criticism and reception in languages other than English. Unassigned areas include: the Eastern bloc, France, Spain, Italy, Cuba, India, and African nations.
- War: WWI (In Our Time, A Farewell to Arms); the Spanish Civil War (For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Spanish Earth, The Fifth Column); WWII (Across the River and into the Trees, war correspondence, short stories); Martha Gellhorn's fiction and war correspondence.
- Animals and the Environment: Hemingway and the circus; Death in the Afternoon and The Dangerous Summer; hunting and fishing narratives (Green Hills of Africa, The Old Man and the Sea); stewardship (Under Kilimanjaro); short stories.
- Gender and Sexuality: work on gender and sexuality in Hemingway's earlier work is particularly requested (In Our Time, A Farewell to Arms, short stories).
- Life Writing: A Moveable Feast, Green Hills of Africa; Under Kilimanjaro; The Dangerous Summer; biographies of Hemingway; Hemingway in memoirs by other modernists.
- Lesser-known works: Hemingway's poetry, The Fifth Column, Esquire letters, Islands in the Stream, The Dangerous Summer; and lesser-known short stories.
- Hemingway's influence: tracing, with concrete evidence, the influence of Hemingway on his contemporaries and how that influence is still evident today.
- Hemingway's World: Essays in this section will not focus specifically or exclusively on Hemingway but will rather be "explainers," offering insightful analysis and overview of the various places and historical events that shaped Hemingway's writing; in understanding these contexts, readers will better understand Hemingway. These articles will have broad appeal to scholars and teachers working outside of Hemingway studies as well, giving the book a wider audience that includes anyone wishing to know more about 20th-century literature and culture. Essays on the following are especially desired: 1930s: The Great Depression in America, revolution in Cuba, and the rise of Fascism in Europe; 1940s: the end of Modernism and the literature of WWII; 1950s-early 1960s: the atomic age and space race, retrenchment and counterculture; the Cuban revolution.
- Pedagogy: How to approach Hemingway's work in today's classroom at the secondary, post-secondary, graduate, and ELL levels, with unique approaches and best practices.
- Bibliographic essays: Hemingway's reviewers and critics 1923-1961; criticism 1961-1980; criticism 1981-2011; Hemingway state of the field (2011-ongoing).
To be considered, please submit an abstract of 500-1000 words describing your topic and approach, as well as a short author bio of 50-250 words listing your current professional affiliation, degrees held, previous publications, and/or other qualifications. This collection seeks to represent a wide range of interests and perspectives, and work by scholars from outside the United States, women, minorities, marginalized groups, and veterans is especially welcome.
The deadline for proposals is September 30, 2023, but review and acceptance of proposals will begin immediately.
If accepted, chapters of 3,000-6,000 words would be submitted by 30 May 2024. This deadline will allow time for revision requests and for contributors who are planning to attend the International Hemingway Conference in Spain in July 2024 to meet in person with the editor and with fellow contributors, making for a more productive and collaborative editorial process than is usually the case with edited collections. (Attendance at the conference is not required).
Please direct your proposals to Dr. Verna Kale, vlk123@psu.edu.