“The Literature of Climate Displacement” is the main theme for an upcoming issue of Public Humanities, which will be guest edited by Tanu Gupta, Shamim Mondol and Mohammad Rahmatullah. The deadline for submissions is April 30, 2026. Areas of particular interest include Deltas & Archipelagos; Borders, Crossings & Carceral Scenes; Indigenous, Islander & River Rights Storytelling; and Translation & Multilingual Pathways. See below for a list of possible topics, guidelines, and more information.
Public Humanities is a new international open-access, cross-disciplinary, peer-reviewed journal at the intersection of humanities scholarship and public life. The journal invites proposals for themed issues that pose urgent questions on contemporary public issues that require rigorous and relevant humanities knowledge.
Description: This issue foregrounds literature as a vital lens for understanding climate-driven mobility. It explores how novels, poems, short stories, drama, life-writing, oral and graphic narratives, and experimental forms render climate displacement visible to wider publics—mapping loss and belonging, border and passage, memory and repair. Rather than treating “crisis” in the abstract, we seek work that situates movement within longer histories of extraction, empire, border enforcement, and uneven development, showing how literary storytelling travels between classrooms, community archives, galleries, legal forums, and policy debates.
We invite a range of contributions that keep literary texts at the centre while engaging wider publics. These may include close readings and comparative essays; creative-critical portfolios combining poetry/prose with reflection; translator or editor notes on rendering displacement across languages; interviews and roundtables with writers, publishers, educators, or archivists; and reflective case studies co-authored with NGOs, schools, museums, or grassroots groups. We also encourage short, teachable resources—syllabus modules, annotated reading lists, or assignment designs—that translate literary analysis into classroom and community practice. Multilingual submissions are welcome, provided English translations accompany quoted material.
Areas of Particular Interest • Deltas & Archipelagos: Cyclone memory, salinisation, and managed retreat as narrated in fiction and poetry. • Borders, Crossings & Carceral Scenes: Mediterranean and American boat narratives, testimonios, graphic reportage, and sanctuary literatures. • Indigenous, Islander & River Rights Storytelling: Kinship, sovereignty, and rights-of-nature/river personhood in fiction, verse, and oral traditions. • Translation & Multilingual Pathways: Code-switching, untranslatability, and translator/editor notes shaping climate-migrant literatures.
We particularly encourage submissions from early career researchers, independent scholars, translators, practitioners, and author–community teams. All submissions should be written in accessible language for audiences within and beyond the academy.
Submission Guidelines: Submissions should be written in accessible language for a wide readership across and beyond the humanities. Articles will be peer reviewed for both content and style. Articles will appear digitally and open access in the journal.
All submissions should be made through the Public Humanities online peer review system. Authors should consult the journal’s Author Instructions prior to submission.
All authors will be required to declare any funding and/or competing interests upon submission. See the journal’s Publishing Ethics guidelines for more information.
Guest Editors: Prof. (Dr.) Tanu Gupta, Dr. Md. Shamim Mondol, Dr. Mohammad Rahmatullah likhon661993@gmail.com
Questions regarding peer review can be sent to the Public Humanities inbox at publichumanities@cambridge.org.
For more information, see https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/public-humanities/announcements/call-for-papers/the-literature-of-climate-displacement?w
“The Literature of Climate Displacement” is the main theme for an upcoming issue of Public Humanities, which will be guest edited by Tanu Gupta, Shamim Mondol and Mohammad Rahmatullah. The deadline for submissions is April 30, 2026. Areas of particular interest include Deltas & Archipelagos; Borders, Crossings & Carceral Scenes; Indigenous, Islander & River Rights Storytelling;