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  • CALL FOR PAPERS – ALETRIA v. 36, n. 4 (2026) DOSSIER: Boundaries of Fictionality in Contemporary Narrative (2000-2025)

    2025-09-08

    CHAMADA ALETRIA - v. 36, n. 4 (out.-dez. 2026)

    Editors: 

    Kelvin Falcão Klein (Universidade Federal do Estado Rio de Janeiro)
    Ligia Gonçalves Diniz (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais)
    Luciene Almeida de Azevedo (Universidade Federal da Bahia)

    Submission deadline: March 04, 2026

    Boundaries of Fictionality in Contemporary Narrative (2000-2025)

    Responding to the claim that the modern novel “discovered fiction” (Gallagher, 2006, p. 337), medievalist Julie Orlemanski (2019, p. 247) questions the conflation of the “concept” and the “experience” of fictionality and proposes instead a “comparative poetics of fiction.” In her account, fiction emerges as a “demarcatory phenomenon”: we call discourses fictional insofar as they deliberately suspend any binding commitment to truth.

    The definition of truth, in turn, is neither transhistorical nor ahistorical. Rather, it is constituted within interpretive communities, which establish its parameters in contingent and mutable ways and draw on languages as heterogeneous as history and common sense, philosophy and religious doctrine, science, or the performative efficacy of speech acts.

    Orlemanski’s formulation thus preserves the modern distinction between fiction and falsehood or error, while leaving open the discursive contexts in which fictionality is negotiated. This elasticity enables us to reflect not only upon pre- and extra-modern experiences of the fictional but also, by extension, on the very conventions of truth operative within specific cultural configurations.

    From this perspective, we ask: what does the contemporary proliferation of literary forms that unsettle the boundaries of factual truth—long considered the benchmark of modern fictionality—reveal about both the possibilities of fiction and the regime of truth in which we are situated?

    In a related sense, given the emphasis on biographical and social realities as frameworks of present-day narrative practices, we inquire into what experiences may be curtailed by the relative waning of interest in narratives of invention.

    Among other possible lines of enquiry, this dossier invites contributions engaging with theoretical perspectives on the contemporary status of fictionality, as well as investigations into:

    • hybrid forms at the intersection of fiction and non-fiction: life writing, essay, chronicle;
    • the presence of the “real” in literature and the arts;
    • reconfigurations of the novel and the short story;
    • practices that interrogate authorship, narration, and reading;
    • dialogues between fiction, memory, and the archive;
    • regimes of truth and fictionality;
    • autofiction and authenticity in the age of the truth crisis.
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  • CALL FOR PAPERS – ALETRIA v. 36, n. 3 (2026) DOSSIER: Literatures and Spiritualities

    2025-06-25

    CHAMADA ALETRIA - v. 36, n. 3 (jul. - set. 2026)

    Editors:

    José de Paiva dos Santos (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais)
    Felipe Fanuel Xavier Rodrigues (Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro)
    Ane Caroline Ribeiro Costa (Utica University)

    Submission deadline: December 31, 2025

    Literatures and Spiritualities

    The journal Aletria  invites researchers and faculty members in the field of literature and related disciplines to submit articles for the special issue "Literatures and Spiritualities." This edition aims to explore the intersection between literary traditions and spirituality in its various manifestations, examining how literatures from different eras and cultures address transcendental, existential, and spiritual issues. 

    The relationship between literatures and spiritualities is rich and multifaceted. From the great classics of world literature to contemporary works, authors have often turned to the transcendent, whether through religious themes, philosophical reflections, or the expression of the sacred in everyday life. We thus invite the submission of articles that discuss: 

    - The presence of the sacred and spiritual in literary works from different religious traditions; 

    - The ways in which literature engages with existential and transcendental questions; 

    - Spirituality as a path of resistance and social transformation in literary texts; 

    - African and Afro-diasporic religious cultures and their literatures; 

    - Indigenous sacred traditions and their literary expressions; 

    - Analyses of authors whose works reflect prominent spiritual dimensions; 

    - Spiritualities and mysticisms in poetry and prose; 

    - Dialogues between literature, philosophy, and theology in the realm of religious imagination. 

    Articles addressing these and other aspects of the central theme, from various theoretical and methodological perspectives, will be accepted. We encourage interdisciplinary approaches that connect literature to fields such as philosophy, theology, cultural studies, and religious studies. 

     

     

     

     

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