Current Calls for Submissions

Eligibility and submission procedures for the Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association can be found on our member portal. Articles should be between 7,000 and 10,000 words (including notes) and follow MLA 9th edition's formatting guidelines.

Prior to submission please review the JMMLA's Style Guide and Manuscript Manager Instructions.

The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association invites submissions for a Fall 2025 issue on the theme of “Health in/of the Humanities.”

“We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.” So reads an inscription on the tomb of the fictional author Kilgore Trout in Kurt Vonnegut’s 1973 novel Breakfast of Champions. While darkly serio-comic, the novel’s exploration of how “ideas or the lack of them can cause disease” raises genuine questions about the relationship between the humanities and health that inform the theme of the fall 2025 issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association.

Long before the COVID-19 pandemic publicly surfaced the social, cultural, and political dimensions of the health sciences, researchers were exploring ties between the humanities and health in interdisciplinary clusters like the medical humanities, health humanities, and narrative medicine. And even earlier—stretching back centuries to humourism and beyond—contacts between the humanities and health sciences provided reliable frameworks for interpretations of individual works, genres, and practices of reading, writing, and speaking that directly impacted the lived, bodily experiences of particular persons and communities.

For the fall 2025 issue of the JMMLA, we invite submissions that contribute new insights into the evolving relationship between health and the humanities, and what this relationship might tell us about the health of the humanities both now and in the future. To this end, we seek submissions that address the following topics:

  • Narratives of health, sickness and/or recovery
  • Health subcultures
  • Disability studies
  • Food studies
  • Religion and health
  • Women’s studies and health
  • Medical Humanities, Narrative Medicine, Health Humanities
  • Health Science Writing
  • Representations of Public, Private, and Global Health
  • Environmental Health
  • Mental/psychological health
  • Psychoanalysis
  • Digital Humanities/modeling approaches to health
  • Privacy and confidentiality
  • Medical technologies
  • Health professions/institutions/workplaces

Articles should be between 7,000 and 10,000 words (including notes). Prior to submission please review the JMMLA's Style Guide and Manuscript Manager Instructions. Please direct all questions to the MMLA at [email protected] or to the editor of this issue, Nathan Jung ([email protected]).

Submission deadline: September 15th, 2025

Spring 2026: Transnational Writings - Ethnic Ukrainian Authors in the Americas

The Journal of the Midwestern Modern Language Association invites submissions for a Spring 2026 special issue on “Transnational Writings: Ethnic Ukrainian Authors in the Americas.”

This special issue aims to spotlight the diverse and compelling works of contemporary authors of Ukrainian descent who have chosen the languages of the Americas as their literary medium, whether it be English, Spanish, or Portuguese. The authors addressed in this issue must have significantly contributed to contemporary literature, capturing various features of the Ukrainian migrant experience in the Americas. We believe this special issue will contribute significantly to the scholarly discourse on multicultural literature and provide a platform for the voices of authors of Ukrainian descent across the Americas to resonate with a broader audience.

The special issue welcomes scholarly articles, critical essays, and literary analyses that delve into the works of authors of Ukrainian descent in the Americas, with special emphasis encouraged on the following writers: Lisa Grekul, Myrna Kostash, Janice Kulyk Keefer, Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger, Katherine Marsh, Valya Dudycz Lupescu, Ksenia Rychtycka, Alexander J. Motyl, Daniel Hryhorczuk, Orest Stelmach, Zhanna Slor, Mark Wansa, and Askold Melnyczuk.

Possible topics include but are not limited to the following as they pertain to authors of Ukrainian descent writing in the Americas:
  • Identity and Belonging: Explorations of how these authors negotiate questions of identity, belonging, and cultural hybridity in their works.
  • National Identity and Difference: Efforts to express or resist a, for instance, distinctively Ukrainian-American, Ukrainian-Canadian, Ukrainian-Mexican, or Ukrainian-Brazilian mode of writing.
  • Language and Expression: Analyses of the linguistic choices made by authors and the impact of language on the representation of ethnic Ukrainian experiences in the Americas.
  • Historical and Cultural Contexts: Investigations into the historical and cultural contexts that shape these authors’ narratives.
  • Generational Shifts: Studies of how generational shifts influence themes, perspectives, and styles within writings by these authors.
  • Migration: Exploration of the theme of migration in these authors’ writings, considering its impact on characters and narrative structures.
  • Trauma and Memory: Analyses of how trauma is portrayed and remembered in the works of these writers.
  • Revision of History: Studies of the revisionist aspects of history in literature by these writers, considering how they reinterpret and challenge historical narratives.
  • Genre Experiments: Examination of genre experiments within literature by these authors, exploring how they engage with and innovate upon traditional literary forms.

Please direct all questions to the MMLA at [email protected] or to the guest editor of this special issue, Mariya Shymchyshyn ([email protected]).

Submission deadline: December 15th, 2025