2025

Voices Across Borders: Reframing the Barriers of Vulnerability in Language, Culture, and Literature Guest co-editors: Gaetano Falco (Università degli Studi di Bari “Aldo Moro”) Elena Spandri (Università degli Studi di Siena) Jun Pan (Hong Kong Baptist University) Copyeditor: Eileen Mulligan (University of Bari) In an increasingly hostile transnational political climate and environment, where current sweeping policy-making bodies demonize notions and practices of diversity, equity, and inclusion, fostering division within and between societies, nation-states, and cultures, the need to encourage inclusive dialogue in academic research has never been more pressing. By reframing the barriers of vulnerability in all its forms—whether linguistic, cultural, social, and digital, or in their literary representation— this issue of Textus intends to construct a comprehensive and vibrant space for scholarly investigation and social change, encouraging interdisciplinary conversation. Vulnerability is a concept that usually implies the related ideas of fragility, inequity, and risk, but is also associated with resilience, empowerment and resistance (Butler 2014). It “is a concept with fleeting contours as much as it is an idea with assured academic success” (Ferrarese 2016:149). As such, it is characterized by indeterminacy and variability, which accounts for the current, “increasingly multidisciplinary interest in the topic.” (Nungesser and Schirgi 2024: 252). Over the last decades, the notion has gained the attention of various research areas, both embracing and articulating its conceptual boundaries, as the idea itself has been subject to reconceptualization in the field of international human rights law (Morawa 2003). The call for Voices Across Borders offers itself to multiple inflections, showcasing the need for change and empowerment as a key quality that underlies recent developments in the fields of – amongst others – (critical) discourse analysis, literary studies, cultural studies, (critical) disability studies, gender studies, environmental studies, migration, border discourse and cultural mediation, and museum studies. Among the possible angles, one may consider for instance exploring the pliability of the novel form to contemporary ‘humanitarian imaginary’ in the current context marked by a pervasive condition of conflict, the massive experience of vulnerability and mediatic exposure to violence (Ganguly 2016). Another option may be to consider the dual role of language as both a barrier and a bridge across various fields, including translation and communication (Davies 2012); or, as a resource for inclusion and a cause of exclusion of vulnerable groups, ranging from migrants to refugees and asylum seekers (Schrover and Schinkel, 2013), to women and LGBTQI+ people (Jones 2023). The papers selected will ideally address the core topic from either theoretical or applied and text-focussed perspectives, in literature, linguistics, and cultural studies, including discussion of best practices in teaching and other professional experiences. References Antinucci, Raffaella, and Adrian Grafe (eds.). Vulnerability and Resilience in English Literature of the Long Nineteenth Century (McFarland, 2024). Bonacchi, Silvia, ed. Vulnerability: Real, Imagined, and Displayed Fragility in Language and Society. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht unipress, 2024. Butler, Judith. “Introduction: On Linguistic Vulnerability.” In Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. New York: Routledge, 1997: 1-42. Butler, Judith. “Rethinking Vulnerability and Resistance.” In Judith Butler, Zeynep Gambetti, and Leticia Sabsay (ed. by), Vulnerability in Resistance, Duke UP, 2016, pp.12-27. Butler, Judith, Precarious Lives: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (Verso, 2006). Cunningham, Clare, and Christopher J. Hall, eds. Vulnerabilities, Challenges and Risks in Applied Linguistics. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 2021. Davies, Eirlys E. “Translation and Intercultural Communication: Bridges and Barriers.” In C. B. Paulston, S. F. Kiesling, & E. S. Rangel (Eds.), The Handbook of Intercultural Discourse and Communication. Wiley-Blackwell 2012, pp. 367–387. De Vogli R., Lusiardi M. (2024) “The Ecological Crisis and Human Rights: Why We Are All Vulnerable ” Peace Human Rights Governance, 8(1), 135-152. Ferrarese, Estelle. “Vulnerability: A Concept with Which to Undo the World As It Is?”. Critical Horizons, 17, 2 (2016): 149-159. https://doi.org/10.1080/14409917.2016.1153885 Fernández-Santiago, Miriam, and Cristina M. Gámez- Fernández (eds.). Representing Vulnerabilities in Contemporary Literature (Routledge, 2022). Ganassin, Sara, Alexandra Georgiou, Judith Reynolds, and Mohammed Ateek. 2024. “Vulnerability and Multilingualism in Intercultural Research with Migrants: Developing an Inclusive Research Practice.” Language and Intercultural Communication 24 (5): 385–93. doi:10.1080/14708477.2024.2411083. Ganguly, Debjani, This Thing Called the World. The Contemporary Novel as Global Form (Duke UP, 2016). Ganteau, Jean Michel. The Ethics and Aesthetics of Vulnerability in Contemporary British Fiction (Routledge, 2015). Giladi, Paul, and Petherbridge, Danielle. “The Vulnerable Dynamics of Discourse”. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement. 2021: 195-225. doi:10.1017/S1358246121000151 Heikkilä, Mikaela, and Maija Mustaniemi-Laakso. “Introduction: Approaches to Vulnerability in Times of Crisis.” Human Rights Review (2023) 24:151–170. Jones, Lucy, “Language, gender and sexuality in 2022”, Gender and Language, 17, 2 (2023): 1-18. Lewis, Hannah, Precarious Lives: Forced Labour, Exploitation and Asylum (Policy Press, 2014). Morawa, Alexander E., “Vulnerability as a Concept of International Human Rights Law”, Journal of International Relations and Development 6, 2 (June 2003): 139-155. Nixon, Rob, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Harvard UP, 2011). Nungesser, Frithjof, and Antonia Schirgi. “Debating the Vulnerability Zeitgeist: Introduction to an Interdisciplinary Trialogue.” Human Studies, 47, 2 (2024): 251–260. Scarry, Elain, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (OUP, 1985). Schrover, Marlou, and Willem Schinkel. “Introduction: the language of inclusion and exclusion in the context of immigration and integration”, Ethnic and Racial Studies 36, 7 (2013): 1123-1141. Slaughter, Joseph R., Human Rights, Inc. The World Novel, Narrative Form, and International Law (Fordham UP, 2007). Wu, Duncan, and Carolyne Forché (eds.) Poetry of Witness: The Tradition in English 1500-2001 (Norton, 2014). Submission of abstracts Please send abstracts to: gaetano.falco@uniba.it, Timeline Deadline for abstracts submission (400 words plus references): 15 December 2025. Please put as subject line “Textus Cross-disciplinary Issue 6/2025 – abstract submission” Notification to authors: 15 January 2026 Deadline for submission of first draft of article (maximum 7500 words including references): 31 May 2026 Request for revisions following peer review: 15 July 2026 Deadline for final version of article: 1 September 2026

Writing the End, Imagining the Future: Ecoapocalypses and Ecotopias in Anglophone Literature Guest co-editors: Gioia Angeletti (Università di Parma) Roberta Grandi (Università della Valle d’Aosta) Nicoletta Vallorani (Università degli Studi di Milano) Lykke Harmony Alara Guanio-Uluru (Western Norway University of Applied Sciences) Copyeditor: Elizabeth Ritsema (Royal Holloway – University of London) In The Last Man (1826), Shelley thus envisioned the annihilation of the human race: an endemic disease being turned into a pandemic plague by a combination of war-related increase in human contacts and an unprecedented rise in air temperature. Nearly a century and a half later, Callenbach’s Ecotopia (1975) imagined a sustainable society featuring mandatory waste recycling and electric engines, widespread bike-sharing, and advanced technological devices called “picturephones.” Science fiction has long exhibited an uncanny ability to anticipate the worst – and, more rarely, the best – of possible futures. Yet today, as climate change, global warming, the sixth mass extinction, phosphogeddon, and other eco-catastrophes have ceased to be speculative concerns and instead define the lived reality of many communities, the once-cathartic potential of apocalyptic narratives may be diminishing. As noticed by Amitav Ghosh, “There is, […], an important difference between the weather events that we are now experiencing and those that occur in surrealist and magical realist novels: improbable though they might be, these events are neither surreal nor magical. To the contrary, these highly improbable occurrences are overwhelmingly, urgently, astoundingly real.” (2017, 27) Over the last decades, eco-apocalyptic and dystopian works have functioned as a means of reflecting on contemporary environmental crises, serving as cautionary tales designed to warn and engage readers with urgent global concerns (Basu, Broad, and Hintz 2013; Bradford et al. 2008; Curry 2013). However, recent interdisciplinary research spanning psychology, anthropology, affect studies, environmental activism, participatory culture, and speculative fiction (Callahan et al. 2019; de Moor et al. 2020; Leyda 2023; Lockyer and Veteto 2015; McKinley 2008; Nairn 2019; Oziewicz, Attebery, and Dědinová 2022; Weik von Mossner 2017) suggests that an overreliance on apocalyptic frameworks may be counterproductive. Scholars argue that narratives centred on climate catastrophe risk engendering paralysis rather than action, as they can reinforce the perception of an inevitable and insurmountable collapse, discouraging proactive engagement with environmental challenges (Arnold 2018; Hull 2019). In response, alternative genres such as ecotopias and solarpunk offer visions of the future that inspire optimism rather than despair. These narratives imagine worlds that are not only sustainable but deeply appealing, fostering a desire for systemic transformation and encouraging active participation in building a more just and environmentally integrated society (Ulibarri 2022; Weik von Mossner 2017). This issue of Textus invites contributions that examine eco-apocalyptic visions, climate fiction, and environmental dystopias, as well as alternative imaginaries such as ecotopias, solarpunk, fantasy, afrofuturist and feminist utopias. We welcome ecocritical analyses of both classic and contemporary works of adult and children’s literature, along with other critical approaches informed by ecofeminism, intersectionality, blue and green humanities, energy humanities, posthumanism, new materialism, and affect studies. References Arnold, Elizabeth. 2018. ‘Doom and Gloom: The Role of the Media in Public Disengagement on Climate Change’. Shoresteincenter.Org (blog). 28 May 2018. Basu, Balaka, Katherine R. Broad, and Carrie Hintz, eds. 2013. Contemporary Dystopian Fiction for Young Adults.Brave New Teenagers. London, New York: Routledge. Bradford, Clare, Kerry Mallan, John Stephens, and Robyn McCallum. 2008. New World Orders in Contemporary Children’s Literature. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230582583. Buell, Lawrence. 2005. The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination. Blackwell Manifestos. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. Callahan, Megan M., Alejandra Echeverri, David Ng, Jiaying Zhao, and Terre Satterfield. 2019. ‘Using the Phylo Card Game to Advance Biodiversity Conservation in an Era of Pokémon’. Palgrave Communications 5 (1): 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-019-0287-9. Clark, Timothy. 2015. Ecocriticism on the Edge: The Anthropocene as a Threshold Concept. London, New York: Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. Curry, Alice. 2013. Environmental Crisis in Young Adult Fiction. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137270115. Dawson, Ashley. 2017. Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change. London , New York: Verso. Garrard, Greg. 2004. Ecocriticism. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203644843. Ghosh, Amitav. 2017. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. The Randy L. and Melvin R. Berlin Family Lectures. Chicago: The University of Chicago press. Glotfelty, Cheryll, and Harold Fromm, eds. 2009. The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology. Nachdr. Athens, Ga.: Univ. of Georgia Press. Hull, Alyssa. 2019. ‘Hopepunk and Solarpunk: On Climate Narratives That Go Beyond the Apocalypse’. Literary Hub (blog). 22 November 2019. https://lithub.com/hopepunk-and-solarpunk-on-climate-narratives-that-go-beyond-the-apocalypse/. Iovino, Serenella, and Serpil Oppermann, eds. 2014. Material Ecocriticism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Leyda, Julia. 2023. Anthroposcreens: Mediating the Climate Unconscious. 1st ed. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009317702. Lockyer, Joshua, and James R. Veteto, eds. 2015. Environmental Anthropology Engaging Ecotopia: Bioregionalism, Permaculture, and Ecovillages. First paperback edition. Studies in Environmental Anthropology and Ethnobiology, volume 17. New York, Oxford: Berghahn. McKinley, Andrew. 2008. ‘Hope in a Hopeless Age: Environmentalism’s Crisis’. The Environmentalist 28 (3): 319–26. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10669-008-9169-1. Moor, Joost de, Katrin Uba, Mattias Wahlström, Magnus Wennerhag, Michiel De Vydt, Piotr Kocyba, Michael Neuber, et al. 2020. Protest for a Future II: Composition, Mobilization and Motives of the Participants in Fridays For Future Climate Protests on 20-27 September, 2019, in 19 Cities around the World. Nairn, Karen. 2019. ‘Learning from Young People Engaged in Climate Activism: The Potential of Collectivizing Despair and Hope’. YOUNG 27 (5): 435–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/1103308818817603. Oziewicz, Marek, Brian Attebery, and Tereza Dědinová, eds. 2022. Fantasy and Myth in the Anthropocene: Imagining Futures and Dreaming Hope in Literature and Media. London, New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Plumwood, Val. 2007. Environmental Culture: The Ecological Crisis of Reason. Environmental Philosophies Series. London: Routledge. Ulibarri, Sarena. 2022. ‘Do You Believe in Climate Solutions? You Just Might Be a Solarpunk.’ Fix. 4 April 2022. https://grist.org/fix/climate-fiction/do-you-believe-in-climate-solutions-you-just-might-be-a-solarpunk/. Weik von Mossner, Alexa. 2017. Affective Ecologies: Empathy, Emotion, and Environmental Narrative. Cognitive Approaches to Culture. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press. Submission of abstracts and timeline Please send abstracts to: gioia.angeletti@unipr.it, r.grandi@univda.it, nicoletta.vallorani@unimi.it Timeline Deadline for abstracts submission (400 words plus references): 15 September