Postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers are invited to submit an article for possible inclusion in the next issue of the eSharp journal on the theme of ‘Estrangement and Reconciliation’.

Deadlines:
Abstracts: Thursday, 6 February 2020 Full Paper: Monday, 30 March 2020

eSharp is an international online journal for postgraduate research in the Arts, Humanities, Social and Political Sciences and Education. Based at the University of Glasgow and run entirely by postgraduate students, it aims to provide a critical but supportive entry into the realm of academic publishing for emerging academics. Papers will be submitted to double blind peer review.

Estrangement and Reconciliation
The Oxford English Dictionary defines estrangement as ‘separation, withdrawal, alienation in feeling or affection’. It gives a number of meanings for reconciliation, including ‘the fact or condition of a person’s or humanity’s being reconciled with God’, ‘The action of restoring estranged persons or parties to friendship’, and ‘The action or act of bringing a thing or things to agreement, concord or harmony’. As the breadth of these definitions demonstrates, the experience of estrangement, and the struggle for reconciliation, are part of the universal human condition.
Dealing with estrangement is not only a personal challenge for individuals, but a central concern in art and literature (playing a major role in movements such as romanticism, modernism and post-modernism), in education (where there is an increasing focus on teaching inter-personal skills and on pastoral care), and in politics (not only when responding to political and military conflicts, but also to issues such as migration and climate change). We would welcome proposals that explore the theme from the perspective of any of these disciplines, of any geographical location, and of any historical period. We particularly encourage proposals that are interdisciplinary, and that compare and contrast different approaches to achieving reconciliation. Topics might include, but are not limited to:
1) Estrangement due to exile, migration, environmental changes, border frontiers, seeking asylum, the condition of being a stranger.
2) Estrangement due to encounters with the arts, the representation of the known world or having been brought out of oneself, as well as experiences of the abject or the uncanny.
3) Estrangement due to breakdown of personal relationships, the struggle to form such relationships (e.g. among minorities such as LGBTQIA+ people and those with autism), as well as physical, linguistic, social, cultural, ethnic, political and military divisions.
4) Spiritual estrangement due to guilt, the loss of religious faith, separation from nature, a feeling (as in existentialist fiction and philosophy) that one is an ‘outsider’ in one’s native land.
5) The process of individual and collective acceptance of the new identities/selves/relationships borne of estrangement.

Requirements
We welcome contributions by postgraduate students working in any area of the Arts, Humanities, Social and Political Sciences or Education. We also accept submissions from postdoctoral researchers within one year of completing their PhD.
Please submit an abstract of 250-300 words summarising your argument, and a list of 3-5 keywords to indicate the subject area of your article.
When contacting us, state your year of study, programme and briefly describe your research interests. Successful candidates will be notified by Monday 20 February, and may be asked to make relevant editorial changes in order to qualify for publication within a specific time frame.
All articles should adhere to the word limit (4,000-6,000 words) and be submitted with a bibliography listing all works cited (not works consulted) by Monday 30 March. These should either be in doc/docx or RTF format.
A full list of guidelines and our style sheet is available at: http://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/esharp/
For all enquiries and comments please contact: esharp@gla.ac.uk

We look forward to hearing from you,
The Editors