South Atlantic Review Special Issue
In The Time of Man and Beyond:
Rethinking Elizabeth Madox Roberts for the 21st Century
Proposals due November 21, 2025
Guest Editors:
James Stamant, Agnes Scott College
Amanda M. Capelli, New York University
Goretti Benca, Marist College
This special issue of the South Atlantic Review, the official journal of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, aims to explore the life and work of Elizabeth Madox Roberts through a wide variety of perspectives and lenses. Roberts’ work speaks beyond its time about issues that remain deeply contested in the U.S. and globally, and in a moment when questions of what constitutes American history--and whose voices belong within it--are increasingly scrutinized, an issue dedicated to Roberts, and the themes her work explore, seems not only timely, but urgent.
While The Time of Man (1926) continues to resonate with contemporary readers, as a modernist and member of the Southern Renascence, Roberts has a wide-ranging oeuvre that broke ground in terms of style and subject matter. For instance, her second novel, My Heart and My Flesh (1927), tackles race in Roberts’ native home of Kentucky; Jingling in the Wind (1928) plays with the novel form in ways similar to that of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf; and the short story, “The Scarecrow,” published in 1932, complicates representations of disability in ways that prefigure current conversations around mental health.
With the 100th anniversary of The Time of Man approaching next year, the guest editors are currently seeking proposals for essays that demonstrate the wide-ranging influence and lasting legacy of Roberts’ landmark novel as well as perspectives that illustrate Roberts’ significance in our present moment. Potential topics to consider:
The total word count for the final submission is 6500-8000 words, in English, inclusive of notes and works cited.
Abstracts/Proposals (500 words max) are due by November 21, 2025. Please include a short bio (maximum 100 words).
Selections will be made by December 1, 2025. Those invited to participate in the issue will be asked to submit complete essays for editing and peer review by February 1, 2026, with final revisions due by May 31, 2026. The Special Issue is planned for publication in the winter of 2026.
Send questions and submissions to the editors: James Stamant ([email protected]), Amanda Capelli ([email protected]), and Goretti Benca ([email protected])
Notes on Guest Editors:
James Stamant is a visiting associate professor of English at Agnes Scott College. His research and writing interests include Southern Literature, Modernism, media, and American writing on political violence. His monograph, Competing Stories: Modernist Authors, Newspapers, and the Movies, examines the connections between the media and authorship in the first part of the 20th century. He is a past-president of the Elizabeth Madox Roberts Society.
Amanda Capelli is a clinical associate professor in the Expository Writing Program at New York University. Her research and writing interests include Southern women writers, representations of madness and mental illness, poetics of place, and the intersections of objects and memory. Her essays and reviews have appeared in Cagibi: A Literary Place, Talking Writing, North Carolina Literary Review, The Routledge Companion to Literature of the U.S. South, and elsewhere.
Goretti Benca is an Instructional Designer and part-time faculty member at Marist University. Her research and writing interests include Southern women writers, American Modernism, multi-media and literature, food and literature, and children and young adult literature. Her essays have appeared in The Hemingway Review and elsewhere. She is a past-president of the Elizabeth Madox Roberts Society.
James Stamant, Agnes Scott College
Amanda M. Capelli, New York University
Goretti Benca, Marist College
This special issue of the South Atlantic Review, the official journal of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, aims to explore the life and work of Elizabeth Madox Roberts through a wide variety of perspectives and lenses. Roberts’ work speaks beyond its time about issues that remain deeply contested in the U.S. and globally, and in a moment when questions of what constitutes American history--and whose voices belong within it--are increasingly scrutinized, an issue dedicated to Roberts, and the themes her work explore, seems not only timely, but urgent.
While The Time of Man (1926) continues to resonate with contemporary readers, as a modernist and member of the Southern Renascence, Roberts has a wide-ranging oeuvre that broke ground in terms of style and subject matter. For instance, her second novel, My Heart and My Flesh (1927), tackles race in Roberts’ native home of Kentucky; Jingling in the Wind (1928) plays with the novel form in ways similar to that of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf; and the short story, “The Scarecrow,” published in 1932, complicates representations of disability in ways that prefigure current conversations around mental health.
With the 100th anniversary of The Time of Man approaching next year, the guest editors are currently seeking proposals for essays that demonstrate the wide-ranging influence and lasting legacy of Roberts’ landmark novel as well as perspectives that illustrate Roberts’ significance in our present moment. Potential topics to consider:
- Intertextual readings of Roberts and other writers including her contemporaries and collaborations with other artists
- The Time of Man and its relationship to or complication of the Southern Renascence
- Roberts poetry and its influences/confluences
- Roberts in the context of European and Trans-Atlantic literature
- Roberts relationships with her contemporaries
- Recontextualizing/Rereading/Reclaiming Roberts in the 21st Century
- Intersections between Roberts and contemporary Kentucky authors (ie. Silas House, Barbara Kingslover, Bonnie Jo Campbell, C.E. Morgan, and Frank X. Walker)
The total word count for the final submission is 6500-8000 words, in English, inclusive of notes and works cited.
Abstracts/Proposals (500 words max) are due by November 21, 2025. Please include a short bio (maximum 100 words).
Selections will be made by December 1, 2025. Those invited to participate in the issue will be asked to submit complete essays for editing and peer review by February 1, 2026, with final revisions due by May 31, 2026. The Special Issue is planned for publication in the winter of 2026.
Send questions and submissions to the editors: James Stamant ([email protected]), Amanda Capelli ([email protected]), and Goretti Benca ([email protected])
Notes on Guest Editors:
James Stamant is a visiting associate professor of English at Agnes Scott College. His research and writing interests include Southern Literature, Modernism, media, and American writing on political violence. His monograph, Competing Stories: Modernist Authors, Newspapers, and the Movies, examines the connections between the media and authorship in the first part of the 20th century. He is a past-president of the Elizabeth Madox Roberts Society.
Amanda Capelli is a clinical associate professor in the Expository Writing Program at New York University. Her research and writing interests include Southern women writers, representations of madness and mental illness, poetics of place, and the intersections of objects and memory. Her essays and reviews have appeared in Cagibi: A Literary Place, Talking Writing, North Carolina Literary Review, The Routledge Companion to Literature of the U.S. South, and elsewhere.
Goretti Benca is an Instructional Designer and part-time faculty member at Marist University. Her research and writing interests include Southern women writers, American Modernism, multi-media and literature, food and literature, and children and young adult literature. Her essays have appeared in The Hemingway Review and elsewhere. She is a past-president of the Elizabeth Madox Roberts Society.
CFP for SSAWW 2025: EMR Society Roundtable Discussion
The Elizabeth Madox Roberts Society seeks proposals for a roundtable discussion at the next meeting of SSAWW, held in Philadelphia from November 6-9, 2025. The theme of this year’s SSAWW is “Understanding Histories, Imagining Futures: 25 Years of SSAWW.” With this theme in mind, our roundtable is titled “The History and Future of Author Societies.” The roundtable will ideally consist of participants from various author societies, who will discuss anticipated changes and relevance for author societies, talking about both their histories and their imagined futures. We imagine this roundtable will examine many of the important elements highlighted in the call for papers for the conference, including the way that author societies create communities to “engage with the creative work of women across the Americas who foster change and build networks that sustain us through difficult times.”
The Elizabeth Madox Roberts Society celebrated its 25th anniversary conference in the summer of 2023, but with the continued decrease in stable faculty positions in academia, the society has observed real challenges to membership and participation. Given this changing climate, what does the future look like for single-author societies? Where might societies draw new membership and encourage participation if traditional pathways in academia are no longer available? What will be lost if single-author societies are unable to sustain themselves in the future? What is the role for such societies as both the humanities and, even more specifically, literary studies continue to be maligned within and without higher education? Additionally, the participants might explore questions from the SSAWW call for papers such as, “How do we honor our commitment to these authors, our organization, and these enterprises more broadly in the face of limited resources and structural changes within academia? And … how do we nourish one another and our work through such times?”
Please, contact James Stamant at [email protected] with a proposal (250-300 words) or questions if you have an interest in joining this discussion. The deadline to submit is February 21, 2025
The Elizabeth Madox Roberts Society celebrated its 25th anniversary conference in the summer of 2023, but with the continued decrease in stable faculty positions in academia, the society has observed real challenges to membership and participation. Given this changing climate, what does the future look like for single-author societies? Where might societies draw new membership and encourage participation if traditional pathways in academia are no longer available? What will be lost if single-author societies are unable to sustain themselves in the future? What is the role for such societies as both the humanities and, even more specifically, literary studies continue to be maligned within and without higher education? Additionally, the participants might explore questions from the SSAWW call for papers such as, “How do we honor our commitment to these authors, our organization, and these enterprises more broadly in the face of limited resources and structural changes within academia? And … how do we nourish one another and our work through such times?”
Please, contact James Stamant at [email protected] with a proposal (250-300 words) or questions if you have an interest in joining this discussion. The deadline to submit is February 21, 2025
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