Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, the most-taught text across disciplines according to the MLA, will soon celebrate its 40th anniversary of publication. Over these forty years it has received much critical attention, as well some rather virulent attacks. This volume will reconsider past readings of The Woman Warrior while offering fresh scholarship geared toward undergraduates and those who teach the text.
The editors seek original essays of 5,000 words for a collection of essays that explore Kingston’s groundbreaking The Woman Warrior, to be published by Grey House Publishing/Salem Press as part of the Critical Insights series. In line with the expectations of the series, essays should provide instructors, undergraduates, and advanced high school students with a comprehensive introduction to Woman Warrior that they are likely to encounter, discuss, and study in their classrooms; and help students build a foundation for studying the work in greater depth by introducing them to key concepts, contexts, critical approaches, and critical vocabulary found in scholarship.
Volumes in this series follow a uniform format, including four introductory essays (each ~5,000 words):
- “Critical Lens” chapter: offers a close reading of Woman Warrior from a particular critical standpoint;
- “Cultural and Historical Context” chapter: provides a historical overview of the social and cultural factors affecting the production and critical discussions of Woman Warrior;
- “Compare/Contrast” chapter: analysis of thematic and stylistic similarities/differences between Woman Warrior and similar works;
- “Critical Reception” chapter: surveys major scholarship on Woman Warrior while addressing major concerns, or aspects, that scholars have attended to over the years
The collection will also include ten chapters that offer readings of the text, consider it in various contexts, and/or explicate in light of important themes in Woman Warrior. Each essay will be 5,000 words.
Those interested in contributing should send via email a brief abstract (between 500 – 1,000 words) & two-page CV (highlighting relevant experience) by December 30, 2015 to the volume editors at LMoser@Missouristate.edu and kwest@bellarmine.edu.
Acceptance notifications will be sent by January 15, 2015. Completed essays will be due on or before March 31, 2016, with the possibility of requests for revisions in the month after that. Authors of essays will receive an honorarium of $250 and a copy of the volume.