Foundry Open Call: Living Through Upheaval – On Water
Under Fire. On Water. After Earth. Out of Air.
Foundry is devoted to innovative work that takes on emerging trends and possibilities in the humanities through experimental scholarship in form and substance. The Living Through Upheaval open call series summons scholars, activists, and artists to weigh the impact of our world’s contemporary transformations from a myriad of disciplinary and transdisciplinary angles. Submissions should explore the dynamics of political, ecological, and social developments as refracted through the lens of the four classical elements—fire, water, earth, air. Foremost a creative outfit, Foundry encourages submissions that mine the generative potential of the elements as metaphor and framing device; submissions that shake the fetters of traditional academic publishing to offer up a new cracking open in humanities scholarship.
Together with UCHRI’s systemwide Living Through Upheaval initiative, Foundry seeks to pave a course for humanities scholarship pertaining to matters erroneously deemed outside of its scope—ecology, climate, poverty, and other human-centered discourses—which often exclude the humanities viewpoint, its methodologies and commitments. Via these four open calls — Under Fire / On Water / After Earth / Out of Air — Foundry will house a compendium of humanities-driven critical scholarship anchored in the lessons of elemental life. Like a double-edged sword, the elements are predicated on a delicate balance, offering a compelling lens through which to engage and interrelate the powers and perils of our present, past, and near-future actions in the face of our rapidly changing world.
The second in the series—On Water—encourages explorations of the life and behavior of water; its appeal for scholars as a source of epistemology, philosophy, politics; a holding ground for vast potential, unknowingness, and mythology.
Potential areas of inquiry include, but are not limited to:
- Humanistic engagement with water ecology and hydrologic cycle
- Water as an object of study—its idiosyncrasies, conditions, anatomy, language
- Water as metaphor, motif, grammar: the poetics/syntax of water
- Technologies of sustainability: aquaculture, water farming, hydroponics, ocean agriculture
- Amphibian-esque modes and lessons of double-living
- Water and human rights
- Washouts and failures-by-water
- Dynamism and discord between the elements
Foundry solicits submissions that experiment with content and form. We do not heed/adhere to the requirements of traditional academic publishing. Formal variations have included poetry, word and image, dialogue, and lexical analysis.
Those interested in On Water are welcome to submit by June 30 2021. All inquiries can be sent to foundry@hri.uci.edu with the subject heading “On Water.”
Please review Foundry’s mission statement and submission guidelines before sending your pitch or final work.
Upcoming:
After Earth – Summer 2021
Out of Air – Fall 2021
