NORA – Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research. Call for Papers: Special Issue “Gender in Literary Exchange”.

In recent years Nordic feminist scholars have been involved in several international and national projects on transnational transmission of literary texts between the Nordic countries and the rest of Europe. Examples are the European COST Action Women Writers in History, the HERA Project Travelling TexTs 1790–1914, and the project Swedish Women Writers on Export at Gothenburg University. All these collaborations deal with the gendered processes of literary exchange – textual export, import, translation, reception and dissemination across national boundaries. Their purpose is not only to explore the transformations that happen when texts migrate from one cultural and linguistic framework to another, but also to highlight the gendered nature of such transformations and to investigate the significance of transcultural exchange for perceptions of gender. So far the focus has been mainly on eighteenth and nineteenth-century female authors, specifically on recuperating their transnational significance as cultural mediators across borders. However, questions of gender in literary exchange are clearly also relevant for studies of male authors and modern writing.

With this Special Issue of NORA, we want to contribute to an exciting and expanding area of literary research. We invite submissions related to gender in literary exchange as a migratory practice involving intercultural communication through various forms of translation between the Nordic countries and the international world.

Suggested areas for submissions include:

• Nordic women writers and transnational connections

• Nordic travel narratives as gendered translations of culture

• Gender politics in inter-Nordic and international literary exchanges

• Nordic mediations and remediations of international feminist literary theories

• International receptions of Nordic women’s writings

• Recycling international women’s writings in a Nordic context

• Translations as an intersecting category in Nordic feminist literary research