Call for Chapter Abstracts for Edited Anthology, Aquatics as Critical Methods
Aquatics as Critical Methods invites us to reflect on and also critically respond to the blue humanities/critical ocean studies/other neologisms, etc. so as to reframe and reconsider the role that bodies of water play as a humanistic method of inquiry and investigation. What might it mean for the aquatic to foster a critical methodology? And what types of methodologies can the aquatic provide/promise/foreclose in the humanities and humanistic social sciences? How might such critical methods also lean into anticolonial, decolonial, postcolonial, and antinormative perspectives? Said more generally, how can the aquatic shape critical methodologies, and what opportunities, as a result, arise for critical, humanistic inquiry?
This CFP invites abstracts (and original, not-previously-published work) that are diverse in their historical period, genre, disciplinarity, and modes of interpretation. We are also interested in contributors at different career stages, different types of institutions, and diverse geographies.
If interested in participating, please email abstracts of 150-200 words and a short bio sketch by December 1, 2026. Accepted proposals will be invited to submit complete chapters of roughly 6500 words in Summer 2027. The proposal responses will also assist in planning for an in-person collaboration/presentation at ASLE 2027.
Questions or comments? Please contact Jeremy Chow (jhc034@bucknell.edu).
Feature Image: Rideau Aquatic Club, Ottawa, Ontario. May 1912. Credit: Topley Studio Fonds / Library and Archives Canada / PA-042788.
Jeremy Chow