CFP: thresholds no. 1, Extraneous

CFP: thresholds no. 1, Extraneous

Fran McDonald, Whitney Trettien
contact email:
thresholdsjournal@gmail.com
thresholds is a new digital journal co-edited by Whitney Trettien (UNC) and Fran McDonald (U. Louisville). The journal's platform bears witness to the dynamic processes that constitute reading and writing by way of a split-screen architecture. On the left side of the screen, we publish short essays (essayer – trial, attempt, test). The right side of the screen is populated by the various text fragments, images, audio, and video clips that inspired the author and propelled the corresponding work. Unlike a footnote or endnote, these fragments are not explicitly harnessed to the essay's main body; they do not rustle the reader toward a specific interpretative conclusion. Instead, they invite the reader to engage in a series of generative traversals across the central threshold. In this way, thresholds models criticism as a restless and unruly venture that takes place in the spaces between readers, writers, and texts.

The debut issue of thresholds will focus on the theme of the extraneous. We seek manuscripts that deal with the extra, the foreign, or the strange from any angle. We welcome contributions that combine the creative and critical in their approach, and are eager to consider work that is experimental in both content and form. Final submissions will be comprised of a short piece (a maximum of 7000 words) accompanied by a series of fragments. Please submit 400-word abstracts and a brief bio to thresholdsjournal@gmail.com no later than May 15, 2016. Final essays will be due July 31, 2016.

The platform for thresholds is currently under development. For more information or to follow our progress, please visit: http://openthresholds.org