Diálogo: Calls for Articles

“Histories of the Latino/a/x Midwest”

For issue 26.1 we invite authors to submit research articles that examine the complex history of the Latina/o/x Midwest.

For more than a century, Latinas/os/xs have transformed urban and rural spaces across the U.S. Midwest. Whether through creating vibrant communities in large or mid-sized cities, contesting state violence and U.S. colonialism, forging political coalitions, producing powerful artistic works, or sustaining various industries with their labor, the historical impact of Latinas/os/xs on the Midwest has been far-reaching. Despite this sustained presence and influence on the region, the Midwest continues to be understudied in relation to the persistent number of studies published on Latinas/os/xs in the Southwest, West Coast, and East Coast. Over the past fifteen years, scholars of the Latina/o/x Midwest have made tremendous progress in remedying the overlooking of the region within the larger field of Latina/o/x History. Yet, much remains to be done. In the vein of those past efforts and in an attempt to continue this momentum, Diálogo: An Interdisciplinary Studies Journal invites authors to submit research articles that examine the complex history of the Latina/o/x Midwest. With this in mind, contributors to this issue are encouraged (but not required) to consider the following topics:

• Multi-ethnic and Multi-racial Collaborations or Conflicts
• Indigenous and Afro-Latinx Midwest
• Midwest Latina/o/x Industrial or Agricultural labor
• Relationship Between Urban and Rural Spaces
• Community Studies
• Midwest Sanctuary Movement
• Immigration and Migration
• Electoral Politics
• Anti-imperial and Anti-capitalist Activism
• Cultural Productions (music, murals, photography, pageants, art, creative spaces, etc.)
• Gentrification and Political Economy
• Intersections of Gender, Sexuality, and Race
• Deindustrialization
• “Recent” Latina/o/x History
• Midwest Latina/o/x Archives

Submission guidelines can be found at go.depaul.edu/clr (then click on Dialogo tab at left). Please submit completed articles to dialogo@depaul.edu. Please write “Submission for Latinx History of the Midwest” in the title line of the email. For other inquiries about this issue, please contact Dr. Juan Mora-Torres at jmorator@depaul.edu. For inquiries related to Diálogo in general, please contact Dr. Bill Johnson González at bjohns58@depaul.edu.

We encourage submission of articles by April 1, 2023.

Special Theme: "Queer Latinx"

For issue 25.5, we are seeking research articles (8000 words or less) that explore the complexities and varieties of Latinx (broadly defined) and queer lives.

We welcome articles about U.S. Latinx communities, as well as those which explore diverse Latin American realities. We will consider articles from a variety of disciplines, including literature, film and media studies, performance studies, art history, sociology, anthropology, history, and cultural studies.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• What’s in a name?: Terminology issues – LGBT? Queer? Cuir? Joto/a/e/x?, etc.
• Queer? Where?: Transamerican/transnational queer circuits and migration
• Queer Spaces
• Queer Latine/x young adult fiction
• Queering the canon
• Queer life writing
• Transgender matters
• Queer Latinx performance
• Visibility: New representations in film and television
• Queer Activism
• Queer intimacies and socialities (or asociality)
• Cruising, Social Media
• Queer archives
• Queer affects
• Latinx Studies and queer of color critique

Submission guidelines can be found at go.depaul.edu/clr (then click on Diálogo tab at left). Please send inquiries to editor Bill Johnson González (bjohns58@depaul.edu) or dialogo@depaul.edu. We encourage submission of articles by November 18, 2022.

25th Anniversary Issue

Special Theme: “Latinx/as/os Building a Sense of Place in the Chicago area and the Midwest”

This year commemorates the 25th anniversary of Diálogo: An Interdisciplinary Studies Journal, which publishes original research articles and artistic work with a focus on the experiences of US Latinx/a/o, Latin American, Afro-Latinx/a/o, and Indigenous populations.

We would like to celebrate this meaningful accomplishment in a special themed issue featuring scholarly articles that explore the dynamics of how Latinx/as/os have negotiated their sense of place in the Chicago area and the Midwest.

In an age of widespread anti-immigrant rhetoric, we invite interested contributors from various disciplines (geographers, ethnographers, anthropologists, historians, sociologists, linguists, and literature scholars) to answer the following question: What does it mean for Latinx/as/os to build a place of their own, both literally and figuratively? What specific challenges have Latinx/as/os faced in the Chicago area and the Midwest as material and imagined spaces, compared to the experiences of Latinx/as/os on the East Coast/Southwest/West Coast? What opportunities have Chicago and the Midwest afforded Latinx/as/os?

In honor of the many Latinx/as/os who, for decades, have claimed and reclaimed a place of their own living in the US, the guest editors for this issue seek essays that explore how Latinx/as/os have built a sense of place for themselves, how they have negotiated their long relationship with displacement and uprootedness, and what their role has been in transforming their communities on their own terms.  The editors seek essays that pay particular attention to Latinx/a/o/ cultural production, political organizing, and activism in the Chicago area and the Midwest.

Contributors may consider the following issues that have profoundly shaped Latinx/as/os’ sense of place and their role in transforming their communities on their own terms: immigration, transnationalism, decolonization; community activism, anti-gentrification campaigns; gender, sexuality, race, and religion; intra-Latino and crossracial alliances; language; literature and artistic production.

We seek a variety of formats including, but not limited to, research articles, creative writing, interviews, and others. Please send submissions by August 31, 2022, to Dr. Rocio Ferreira (rferreir@depaul.edu) and Dr. Carolina Sternberg (csternb1@depaul.edu).

Special Issue on Latinx Detective Fiction
A Browner Shade of Noir: Latinx Detective and Mystery Narratives in Literature and Popular Culture

Diálogo journal invites authors to submit manuscripts for a special issue dedicated to Latinx Detective Fiction. We are looking for essays exploring the ways in which detective, noir, hardboiled, and mystery narratives add to a range of questions about power in relation to Latinx identities and cultures in the 21st century. At the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, national identity, and ability, this special issue will feature analyses of works that challenge, rewrite, and sometimes ignore completely the popular scripts of white, heteromasculine anti/heroism in which these genres are often grounded. For many Latinx authors, detective narratives appear to offer an outsider perspective (what Ralph E. Rodriguez refers to as "alienated eyes") from which to imagine and articulate more inclusive forms of belonging and political agency. With this in mind, contributors to this special issue are encouraged (but not required) to consider the following questions:

• Why do writers and filmmakers continue to produce works in these genres and why do they remain so popular with audiences? How do these genres change (or do they change?) to accommodate Latinx narratives?
• What is at stake when Latinx narratives of alienation move from focusing on “private eyes/I’s” to imagining “collective we’s”?
• When and to what extent do Latinx detective narratives offer audiences a glimpse through “collective eyes” (or from “collectivized” perspectives)?
• Do representations of power and violence in these genres resonate differently in the hands of Latinx characters, authors, directors, etc.? If so, why?
• What do we gain and what might we lose when we read Latinx authors as disruptive voices within these genres?

We are interested in essays on Latinx authors and Latin American authors who write in and on the boundaries of these genres. We are also interested in essays about detective/noir films, television shows, graphic novels, and/or video games.

Timeline: Please submit a 250-500 word proposal by January 1, 2020. If accepted, final text of the article length piece will be expected in late April 2020, for publication in the Spring 2021 issue. Please submit proposals directly to all editors of the special issue: Jose Navarro (jnavar17@calpoly.edu), Michael Cucher (cucher.michael@gmail.com), and William Arce (warce@csufresno.edu).