Special Issue CFP/Searching for the Truly Strong Man: Masculinities 1914-1945

The Space Between Journal seeks submissions for a 2024 special issue “Searching for the Truly Strong Man: Masculinities 1914-1945.” The Great War presented models of masculinity both for itself and the years afterward: the Tommies, poilus, Mehmetçikler, doughboys, and others offered both continuities with, and breaks from, previous models. These models were in turn both continued and challenged by masculinities of the Second World War. The period thus delineated is not limited to martial masculinities, but rather offers a vast and complex range of figures and models. The global scope of the wars as well as the social and political environments between them—Jim Crow America, the rise of the Third Reich and concomitant persecution of so-called inferior groups, Gandhi’s Swaraj movement, and the Communist International—offer grist for the examination of masculinities as multivalent processes of representation and identification. This Special Issue of The Space Between sets out to map, to interrogate, and to reappraise these figures and their legacies, recognizing the intersections of masculinities with race, sexuality, class, and other aspects of experience.

The types of masculinity the period portrays, praises, and pillories are multitudinous, and this special issue seeks a wide range of explorations across disciplines including art and literature, periodical studies, history, performance, and the archives, as well as contributions that reflect on the period in texts far removed from it chronologically.

Essay submissions are due to the special issue editor, Luke Seaber, by December 31, 2023, and inquiries are welcome.  For more information, see the special issue CFP. 

The Space Between:  Literature and Culture 1914–1945 is devoted to interdisciplinary scholarship on the period bracketed by the two World Wars. We are interested in approaches to texts of all kinds, including literary works, the visual arts, film, music, etc.  We welcome submissions from a variety of disciplines and from scholars around the world, as we seek to approach our period from a broad range of perspectives.  Concurrent with special issue submissions, the general editor continues to review manuscripts on other topics of interest to the readership of The Space Between, and general features will be considered for publication in the special issue. Submissions and inquiries can be sent to the general editor, Jennifer Nesbitt.