[Commlist] Call for papers: 4.0 Interface

Call for papers: 4.0 Interface
Soapbox Journal for Cultural Analysis

View the call on our website: 
https://www.soapboxjournal.net/page/call-for-papers-interface 
<https://www.soapboxjournal.net/page/call-for-papers-interface>

For the upcoming issue of Soapbox, a graduate peer-reviewed journal for 
cultural analysis, we invite young researchers and established scholars 
alike to submit academic essays or creative work that critically engages 
with the theme of interface. We are inviting extended proposals 
(500-1000 words) that follow the MLA formatting and referencing style to 
be submitted to (submissions /at/ soapboxjournal.net) 
<mailto:(submissions /at/ soapboxjournal.net)> by December 14th, 2021.

An interface is a space of contact and interconnection. Thinking within 
but also beyond a media studies framework, we can understand our lives 
to be constantly mediated by interfaces of one form or another. They can 
be understood to serve as an intermediary between individuals and 
cultural objects, or alternatively, between experience and 
infrastructure. Interfaces mediate between a body and its environment, 
the private and public, subject and object. In each instance, the 
interface enables interaction and activity. Consider the movement from 
print to digital media, the structural design of spaces and buildings, 
or the format of an academic paper: as we move through the world we 
encounter and interact with a range of interfaces that delineate the 
possibilities of experience and knowledge in profound ways. As such, 
interfaces are cultural as well as political: they connect us to a 
matrix of histories and structures while their imbrication in power can 
afford and advance the needs of one group at the expense of another.

We encourage submissions relating to the themes above, as well as, but 
not limited to, the following:

● Engagements with cultural objects that critically explore the concept 
of the interface.
● Reflections on the interconnections between genre, narrative modes, 
and the aesthetic experience enabled by different interfaces.
● Platforms and streaming services: economic imperatives and aesthetic 
possibilities.
● Il/literacies, agency, and the politics of access.
● The interface as a verb: what does it mean to interface with space, 
others, the world, and beyond?
● Engagements with social interface theory and German media theory 
(Kittler et al.)
● Meaning-making and translatability: the interface as a vessel for signs.
● Epistemology and/of the interface: the interface as a hermeneutic tool.
● Interfaces and perception of self/identity formation.
● Biometrics and technology in border and domestic policing.
● Interfaces in contemporary work environments and labour practices.
● Interfaces in architecture, design, and AI.
● Knowledge production and interdisciplinarity.
● Devices, screen culture and history.
● Remediation.

We invite extended proposals (500-1000 words) that follow the MLA 
formatting and referencing style to be submitted to 
(submissions /at/ soapboxjournal.com) 
<mailto:(submissions /at/ soapboxjournal.com)> by December 14th 2021. Final 
papers will be around 5000 words in length and the editing process will 
take place over winter and early spring 2022. No payment from authors 
will be required. Please state in your email where you saw the CFP posted.

Guidelines for creative submissions are more flexible and can be 
finished works, but please keep in mind spatial limitations: there is 
usually room for one longer or two shorter pieces in the print version. 
A sense of the formatting possibilities can be garnered from previous 
issues (open-access pdf versions are available on our website).

We also accept submissions for our website all year round. We encourage 
a variety of styles and formats, including short-form essays (around 
2000 words), reviews, experimental writing, and multimedia. These can 
engage with the theme of the upcoming issue but are not limited to it. 
Please get in touch to pitch new ideas or existing projects that you 
would like to have published by reading our submission guidelines and 
filling in the form.

If you have any questions regarding your submission, do not hesitate to 
contact us: (info /at/ soapboxjournal.net) <mailto:(info /at/ soapboxjournal.net)>

Soapbox Journal website: www.soapboxjournal.net 
<http://www.soapboxjournal.net/>

Works Cited

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and 
Spread of Nationalism. Verso Books, 1983.

Boetzkes, Amanda. The Ethics of Earth Art. University of Minnesota 
Press, 2010.

Felski, Rita. Hooked: Art and Attachment. University of Chicago Press, 2020.

McLuhan, Marshall, Quentin Fiore, and Jerome Agel. The Medium Is the 
Massage. Bantam Books, 1967.

Moore, Jason. Capitalism in the Web of Life. Verso Books, 2015.

Pressman, Jessica. Bookishness: Loving Books in a Digital Age. Columbia 
University Press. 2020.


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