Call for papers |Revista de Estudos Literários, vol. 16 (2026)
Coordination:
- Doris Wieser (University of Coimbra)
- Geni Mendes de Brito (Independent Researcher)
- Daniel Graziadei (University of Freiburg)
THEME: INSULARITIES IN PORTUGUESE-LANGUAGE LITERATURES AND CULTURES
Life on islands, especially small and remote islands, differs in many ways from life on continents. On the one hand, the smaller flow of people, goods, and technology, and the reduced access to books, cultural products, training, and diverse jobs, create a sense of isolation and limited life prospects; and particular climatic conditions sometimes jeopardize food security and population health. On the other hand, islands also sometimes house cultural centers, military fortresses, prisons, and places of concentration of political power. As a figure of thought and geomorphological reality, the island functions as an “oscillating figure” (Ette, 2004) between isolation and interconnection (Lima et al., 2011), between difficult accessibility and easy colonization, between final resting place and starting point, between terrestrial seclusion and maritime integration.
In this sense, volume 16 of the Revista de Estudos Literários will examine the poetics of islands (Graziadei et al., 2017) in literature and other arts, as well as the cultural memory and linguistic varieties of Portuguese-speaking island and archipelago territories. Priority will be given to African territories, namely Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe, as well as Mozambique Island, the Bijagós Archipelago, and the islands of Equatorial Guinea (namely Ano Bom). The Portuguese archipelagos of Madeira and the Azores could also be analyzed as colonial and decolonial spaces.
The volume on the insular and archipelagic aesthetics of Portuguese-language literatures and cultures (mainly African) deliberately aims to promote interdisciplinary perspectives at the intersection of biogeographical, literary, linguistic and cultural concepts of Island Studies.
