Call for papers – Soil
Posted on 13/03/2025
“Grounded Futures: The Poetics and Politics of Soil in a Changing World”
Rich with past histories of abundance and scarcity, composed of cycles of death and regeneration, the land beneath our feet bears the legacies of the past and portends the futures to come. Soil is both allegorical (used to invoke suspect patriotisms and allegiances) and resolutely material. What would it mean to centre the narratives, temporality, and life worlds of soil in interdisciplinary discussions of sustainable futures? This special issue draws together perspectives on soil from cultural studies, media studies, social sciences, and soil activism to inquire into the poetics and practice of soil care in local and transnational spaces. Reimagining our relationship with soil is fundamental to the future of our food system under increasingly precarious climatic conditions, yet it is also deeply entangled in cultural productions of home, nation, identity, place, and time. Taking inspiration from Heather Sullivan’s (2012) contention that our understanding of dirt must scale the cultural and the scientific—and attend to the slippage between them—we dig into underground allegories, significations of dirt and soil, farming practices and subjectivities, food sovereignty, land rights, interdependence and regeneration in soil ecosystems, and the dirty ravages of war.
We are soliciting submissions for a special issue in the journal New Formations: A Journal of Culture/Theory/Politics. The call for contributions is open to these and other thematic and topical explorations across the humanities and social sciences. Some additional areas could include:
- Elemental approaches to soil, dirt
- Toxicity, residues, and waste
- Archaeology and sedimentation
- Soil as archive, as an index of race, place and/or identity, as trans/historical
- Radioactive contamination, waste
- Soil health and liveliness
- Soil art and creative production; multisensory experience of soil
- Posthuman, animal studies engagements
- Soil fertility and exhaustion
- Erosion, soil loss, desertification
- Carbon capture and the nature/value of soil
- Seeds and soils as technologies and networks
- Soil and food utopias/dystopias
- Soil publics and affects
Please send 250-word abstracts to e.jagoe@utoronto.ca and include a short bio. Abstracts are due April 1, with notifications to follow two weeks later. Full manuscripts will be requested by the end of August, 2025. Please contact us with any questions: e.jagoe@utoronto.ca; zenia.kish@ontariotechu.ca.
Eva-Lynn Jagoe is Professor of Comparative Literature and Spanish at University of Toronto. Her recent work explores agricultural practices, food systems, and environmental humanities. She creates campus spaces for growing food and for learning from the soil.
Zenia Kish is Assistant Professor of Communication and Digital Media Studies at Ontario Tech University. Her work explores digital agriculture, food media, and philanthropy. She is the co-editor of Food Instagram: Identity, Influence, and Negotiation (2022) and recently co-edited and contributed to a special issue of New Media & Society on farm media.