CALL FOR ABSTRACTS for a First Dossier in the Journal Aztlán—The Global Latinidades: Towards a Transhemispheric Latinx Studies for the 21st Century

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS
The Global Latinidades: Transhemispheric Latinx Studies
Special First Dossier in Aztlán: Journal of Chicana/o Studies
Co-Curators Roberto Macias and B. V. Olguín

The institutionalization of Latinx Studies, rapid growth of Latinx communities, and new multi-generational Latinx presence throughout the world, cumulatively pose profound challenges to extant research in Latinx Studies. The increasing diversity of Latinx communities, for instance, now includes a large segment of Central American and new Indigenous descent populations in addition to new mestizajes, transculturations, and ideological syntheses. These involve expansions of AfroLatinx subjectivities beyond Caribbean descent populations, particularly among Central American-descent and Mexican-descent Latinx people. Furthermore, new spiritual mestizajes include Latinx Muslims, the fastest growing segment of new Muslims in the US, as well as myriad Latinx Buddhism practitioners, and growing non-Christian Latinx groups. Furthermore, LatinAsian migrations, sojourns, and syntheses throughout eastern, western, and southern Asia increasingly challenge the familiar narrative of wartime encounters. Adding to these complexities are multiple generations of Latin American descent migrants to Canada, Europe, Asia, as well as the Mediterranean, Middle East, and north Africa. This growing and increasingly more complex in-group diversity has compounded the need for a globalized approach to Latinx studies research beyond the conventional focus on the US-Mexico borderlands, east coast and midwestern US, Caribbean, and the Americas in general.

The double-dossier seeks proposals for scholarly essays, critical testimonial reflections, and additional creative-critical explications that focus on the geopolitical, demographic, and cultural imperatives in the US and globally that have posed new challenges and opportunities for researchers in the ever-evolving field of Latinx Studies. This includes an expansive range of Latinx epistemologies and ontologies, or Latinidades, synthesized through encounters and dialogues with peoples, cultures, and paradigms throughout the world. The dossier seeks interdisciplinary research that extends beyond the conventional Latinx studies focus on the Americas. For instance, proposals may cover transversal Latinx formations forged in cross-cultural encounters in contact zones throughout Africa, Asia, and Europe, along with under-explored areas of the Americas and Caribbean. The publication will be distinguished by its recovery of neglected and discrepant archives and phenomena. It thus proposes contrapuntal and meta-critical mappings of Latinx identity, culture, and agency in dialogue with intersecting and newly engaged disciplines, fields, and areas. Possible topics may include:

• New Latinx migratory and diasporic populations inside and outside the US
• New discoveries of pre-U.S. and post-U.S. Latinx formations (e.g., including 19th Century Latinx Studies)
• New mestizajes and transculturations extending beyond established European and Amerindian syntheses
• AfroLatinidades within and outside the Americas (e.g., Son Jarocho movement)
• LatinAsian paradigms in multiple hemispheres
• Comparative global indigeneity models
• Post-corporeal and post-human formations
• Speculative trans-temporal and inter-galactic epistemologies and ontologies

Please submit a 250 word abstract for 5,000-7,000 word essays/chapters, or creative-critical pieces of 1,000- 3,000 words, along with a 2-page CV, to ben.olguin@english.ucsb.edu and robertomacias@ucsb.edu by January 1, 2022. Selections will be made by January 15, 2022. The date for selected contributors to submit their full drafts for a virtual colloquium/workshop will be March 15, 2022. We welcome proposals from postgraduates and independent scholars across the globe. Contact co-curators if you have any questions about the project and please share this CFP. Contributors will have access to travel funding for conference presentations planned for the anthology version of this double-dossier sequence in 2023.