Call for Contributions: HARDY NOW

A Forum (Thomas Hardy Journal)

For its autumn 2019 issue, the Thomas Hardy Journal publication of the Thomas Hardy Society invites contributions to a forum on the subject of HARDY NOW. More specifically, following the call of the V21 Collective for a new form of strategic presentism, it seeks short reflections on the contemporary purchase of Hardys prose and verse (Kornbluh and Morgan 2015).

To address the questions of why and how Hardy matters now ninety-one years after his death and 148 years after the publication of his first novel does not mean simply to acknowledge the fact that he wrote about themes that resonate in the twenty-first century, even though, of course, he did just that. The relationship between humans and their ecological environments; sexual consent and sexual violence; animal rights and the ethics of the human-animal encounter; economic structures and their psychological implications; heredity and determinism; the cultural impact of infrastructural development; overpopulation these are just some of the themes in Hardys work that remain at, or have moved to, the centre of contemporary cultural debate.

But how can new readings of Hardys texts paying careful, precise attention to formal properties, informed by contemporary theories and approaches direct, assist, or transform the way we understand our own historic moment and the political, economic, social, and cultural matters that preoccupy us in the present? We welcome contributions that explore this broad question, focusing on any aspect of any work by Thomas Hardy. However, essays that consider such relatively less-discussed works as the short stories or The Dynasts will be especially welcome.

Contributions should be between 2,500 and 4,000 words, and must be submitted via email to by the deadline of 31 July 2019. Longer contributions will be considered on an individual basis.

They will be peer-reviewed by the journals editorial board. Enquiries about the suitability of submissions are welcome and should be directed to k.koehler@bangor.ac.uk

Dr. Karin Koehler, Editor of Thomas Hardy Society Journals | email: k.koehler@bangor.ac.uk

Associated pages
Call for Contributions: “HARDY NOW”

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