estrema: interdisciplinary journal of humanities, an online, double-blind peer-reviewed journal from the Centre for Comparative Studies at the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon (CEComp-FLUL), is currently accepting article and review submissions for the first issue of its Volume 4 until 12 May 2025. The previous issue featured reflections, in the form of articles and interviews, on the life/death dichotomy, approached from an interdisciplinary, comparative, and innovative perspective. In 2025, we are launching estrema's first call for papers specifically focused on a particular field of study: Speculative Fiction.

Speculative fiction is a broad and imaginative genre that explores possibilities beyond the constraints of reality, blending elements of science fiction, fantasy, horror, ecocriticism, cyberpunk, and more. It functions as a lens through which authors (writers, filmmakers, etc.) and readers can examine the human experience by asking “what if?”—whether by envisioning distant futures, parallel worlds, or societies shaped by magic and/or technology. Rooted in both creativity and critical reflection, speculative fiction often challenges social norms, reflects contemporary anxieties, and reimagines the limits of knowledge, power, and existence. From the futuristic settings of science fiction to the mythical realms of fantasy, the genre offers a rich space for storytelling that expands boundaries and inspires both wonder and introspection.

The publication of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley in 1818 marks the emergence of science fiction, a genre which, alongside horror and fantasy, forms one of the foundations of speculative fiction as a literary movement. However, this field has long been dominated by male writers: in 1999, women accounted for only 36% of speculative fiction authors registered with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. In the 21st century, however, authors such as Ursula K. Le Guin, Connie Willis, and Carolyn Janice Cherry have gained critical recognition and significant commercial success with works that explore themes such as technological advancement, the supernatural, and the discovery of alternate worlds and parallel realities.

In the field of feminist, ecological, and scientific studies, biologist and philosopher Donna J. Haraway proposes another way of thinking about speculative fiction, attributing multiple meanings to the term 'SF', such as 'science fact', 'science fiction', ‘speculative fabulation’, 'speculative feminism', and 'string figures'. SF is about simultaneously experimental and responsible practices of worlding, something that Haraway finds particularly urgent in the context of the Anthropocene. Not belonging exclusively to the domain of fiction, SF allows the involvement of different species, creatures and cyborgs in a making-with of worlds, cosmologies and string figures that constitute alternatives to anthropocentrism.

Ecocriticism contributes to the appreciation of speculative fiction by highlighting the agency of natural elements and non-human life. The emergence of so-called "climate fiction" (cli-fi) projects futures shaped by catastrophic climate scenarios in response to human exploitation. In contemporary decolonial fiction, novels such as A Morte e o Meteoro (2019) by Joca Reiners Terron address these anxieties by intertwining past and future, questioning materialistic, anthropocentric, and Eurocentric exploitation. Through the idea that "the future will be ancestral," decolonial aesthetics such as Afrofuturism and post-Indigenism invite a reorganisation of the relationship between culture and nature, emphasising their potential to imagine alternatives to historical progress.

The principles of fantasy fiction were first discussed by J. R. R. Tolkien in his seminal lecture “On Fairy Stories” (1939), according to which enchantment is the primary goal of any work of fantasy. However, it has remained an elusive genre. The most persuasive definition that has emerged is Brian Attebery’s ‘fuzzy set’, which defines fantasy not by its boundaries, but by its centre, and, to the author, “The Lord of the Rings stands in the bullseye” (1992, 12-13). In turn, Farah Mendlesohn contends that fantasy hinges on a “dialectic between author and reader for the construction of a sense of wonder, that it is a fiction of consensual construction of belief” (2008, 8). The content of fantasy, agreed upon by most authors, is the impossible, or that which challenges the natural laws of the Primary World.

Speculative Fiction frequently examines the interplay between language and the perception of reality, as exemplified in the works of Jorge Luis Borges, Yoko Ogawa, and Ted Chiang: blending philosophy with the usage of spoken language, mathematics, and logic, it challenges conventional notions of time, memory and existence—thereby providing a malleable and completely subjective ‘reality’.

Thus, estrema invites contributions from all students, regardless of their level of higher education, as well as integrated or independent researchers and other interested parties seeking to explore the interdisciplinary and intermedial potential of Speculative Fiction. We encourage proposals that, while comparative in nature, engage in dialogue with the vast possibilities of (re)world-building.



Possible (but not exclusive) thematic axes:

Horror Studies
Fantasy Studies
Dystopias/Utopias
Genre Studies
Narratology
Monstrosity
Film, Literary, and Video Game Studies
Ecocriticism
Gender Studies


Guidelines

Submission deadline: 12 May 2025

Notification of acceptance for peer review: July–August 2025

Submission email: estrema.cecomp@letras.ulisboa.pt

Languages: Portuguese and English



All submissions must be sent exclusively to the email provided and must include the author's full name, email address, academic affiliation, ORCID code (if applicable), and a short biographical note (maximum of 100 words).

Submissions should be formatted in Times New Roman, size 12, with 1.5 spacing, and must be between 4,000 and 7,000 words (including footnotes and references). Page numbering, indexing, and any other form of automated formatting are not permitted.

All citations and references must follow the Author-Date system of The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th Edition.

It is essential that all submissions adhere to the Author Guidelines, available here. Submissions that do not comply with these guidelines will be rejected without further comment.



References

Attebery, Brian. 1992. Strategies of Fantasy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Davin, Eric Leif. 2006. Partners in Wonder: Women And the Birth of Science Fiction, 1926-1965. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

Martínez Fabre, Mario-Paul, and Fran Mateu. 2020. Melted Reality: New Proposals from the Fantastic Aesthetics. Spain: Massiva, Grupo de Investigación UMM.

Mendlesohn, Farah. 2008. Rhetorics of Fantasy. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.

Nevins, Jess. 2020. Horror Fiction in the 20th Century: Exploring Literature’s Most Chilling Genre. Santa Barbara: Praeger.

Peirse, Alison, ed. 2020. Women Make Horror: Filmmaking, Feminism, Genre. New Brunswick, Camden, Newark, and London: Rutgers University Press.

Roas, David. 2019. «El Monstruo fantástico Posmoderno: Entre La anomalía Y La domesticación». Revista De Literatura 81 (161): 29-56. https://doi.org/10.3989/revliteratura.2019.01.002.

Sousa, Maria Leonor Machado de. 1979. O «Horror» na Literatura Portuguesa. Portugal: Instituto de Cultura Portuguesa.

Stuart, Robert. 2022. Tolkien, Race, and Racism in Middle-earth. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Todorov, Tzvetan. 1973. The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre. Translated by Richard Howard. Cleveland and London: The Press of Case Western Reserve University.

Tolkien, J. R. R. 1997. The Monsters and The Critics and Other Essays. London: HarperCollins.

Wolf, Mark J. P. 2012. Building Imaginary Worlds: The Theory and History of Subcreation. London and New York: Routledge.

Wolf, Mark J. P., ed. 2018. The Routledge Companion to Imaginary Worlds. London and New York: Routledge.