Submissions

Scroll down to see the guidelines for guest-editing an issue and our forthcoming issues/concept notes:

General Submission Guidelines:

1. We are ideologically neutral and invite submissions from the perspectives of all ideologies – right, center, left etc. – as long as a piece makes a reasoned argument.

2. While emailing your pieces, please write ‘Magazine Piece: Issue No.’ in the subject line. Send submissions and queries to email ids of individual guest editors listed with concept notes.

3. The pieces should be around 2000-2500 words. We are open to making exceptions to this rule, if a particular piece deserves more space.

4. We do not accept creative writing (poems, short stories, etc.) for magazine issues, unless an issue is specifically devoted to creative writing.

5. We are open to audio-visual submissions (in the form of interviews, conversations etc.). The audio-visual files must not be more than 20 minutes in duration. Again, we are open to making exceptions to this rule in some cases.

6. We invite Photo Essays on the given topic of a particular issue. We will include a maximum of 15 photos in a Photo Essay.

7. In case the authors are making submissions to multiple magazines, blogs, and newspapers,  they must inform Cafe Dissensus the moment the piece is accepted elsewhere. Once Cafe Dissensus accepts a piece and starts working on it, it cannot be published in another magazine, blog, and newspaper.

8. The materials on Cafe Dissensus are protected under Creative Commons License. Once a piece is published in Cafe Dissensus, we will retain exclusive copyright for a period of 30 days, from the date of publication. Within this period, the piece cannot be re-published elsewhere even in an adapted and modified form.Thereafter, it must be acknowledged that the piece was first published in Cafe Dissensus. Failing to comply with this and any unauthorized republication/reproduction of the piece will invite legal measures and prosecution.

9. We are a completely voluntary endeavor and we are unable to pay our authors.

Guidelines for Guest-Editing an Issue:

We invite our readers, teachers, scholars, students, journalists/media professionals, activists, professionals (practically, anyone who would like to!) to guest-edit an issue of Cafe Dissensus. Here are the guidelines for guest-editing an issue: 

1. The Guest-Editor must send in a 150 word concept note/call for papers to the editors (Email: infocafedissensus@gmail.com) well in advance, describing the theme of the issue (along with raising some questions). We will put up the CFP/concept note on the magazine website and on the magazine social-media pages.

2.There must be at least 15 articles plus the guest-editorial.

3. Each article must be between 2000-2500 words. However, the guest-editor might include a few longer essays, if she/he feels necessary.

4. Since the magazine is geared toward non-academic readers, all footnotes and references must be taken out. The citations within the body of the articles must be minimal, in the form of the name of an author or an idea etc. Please keep this readability factor in mind while soliciting articles and editing them.

5. We expect at least some of the pieces to be personal narratives, wherever possible. One of our aims is to weave the personal with the public/political.

6. Audio-visual content is one of our distinctive features. The guest-editors must include at least 3-4 audio-visual interviews, conversations etc. in the edited issue. For example, interviews and conversations recorded as audio-video or audio. We can help with the logistics of recording and editing the content.

7. The guest-editor will be in charge of collecting, selecting, and editing the articles. All articles will go through a final-edit by the Editors of the magazine.

8. The guest-editor must write an 800-1000 word editorial.

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2023 Cafe Dissensus Issues

Issue 69: August 2023: The Other Mothers: Imagining Motherhood Differently [Last date for submission: 30 June, 2023; Date of publication: 1 August, 2023]

Guest-Editor: Dr. Paromita Sengupta, Director of Studies, GILL, Griffith College Limerick, Ireland.

Concept Note: The conventional concept of ‘motherhood’, constructed by and steeped in the key traits of patriarchal ideology, fabricates it as ‘natural’, ‘innocuous’ and ‘universal’. Numerous feminist theorists studying motherhood have harped on this fact, and it has been the take off point for seminal motherhood studies. As a lived experience, however, motherhood is implicated in issues of gender, race, class and caste; often, the father’s role to both the child(ren) and mother, determines the true value/ place that ‘a motherhood’ and the baby get in society.

This issue of Café Dissensus seeks articles that look at motherhood and mothering differently – questioning it, stretching it, turning it on its head. Can we redefine ‘mother’ as a verb and not as a noun? Can we mother beyond limits of birthing, beyond gender divisions and beyond DNA? Articles that speak of personal experiences of ‘different’ and ‘difficult’ motherhood, abortion, adoptive and ‘step’ mothers, interviews with ‘other mothers’, transgender mothers, experiences of women who choose not to birth/mother, surrogacy, discussion of representations of motherhood on screen – are welcome. What we seek are not dry academic essays but experiential write-ups enriched by intimate personal engagements and negotiations with mothers and motherhood.

The proposed issue welcomes submissions on the following themes (though not limited to them):

• Experiencing a different/ difficult Motherhood
• Postpartum depression
• Single Mothers
• Abortion
• Adoptive mothers
• Transgender Mothers/ Motherhood
• Surrogacy
• Not a mother
• Step-mother
• Mother as witch
• Mother figures in mythology
• Representation of motherhood in film
• Mother-child relationships
• Mothering Differently
• Motherhood beyond gender binaries
• Motherhood and obsession/ madness

Submission should be approximately 2000-2500 words. Audio-video interviews are also welcome. Please do provide a brief bio at the end of your piece. Since the magazine is geared toward both academic and non-academic readers, the citations within the body of the articles must be minimal, in the form of the name of an author or an idea, etc. The issue is planned for online publication on 1 August, 2023. Last date for submission: 30 June, 2023.

Please email your submissions to Dr. Paromita Sengupta (Email: paromitaseng@gmail.com) with the subject line – ‘Submissions – The Other Mothers’.

Issue 70: October 2023: Othello in Bengal [Last date for submission: 30 August, 2023; Date of publication: 1 October, 2023]

Guest-Editor: Abhishek Chowdhury, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Chakdaha College, Nadia, West Bengal, India.

Concept Note: In colonial Bengal, Shakespeare was accepted as a symbol of “Englishness”, including English religion, discipline, language and education. Despite being a dramatization of male jealousy, doomed love and victimization of devoted female, Othello fails to be a universal tale about a man coming to terms with the supposed betrayal and adultery of those closest to him. It is, perhaps, the only tragedy of Shakespeare where the protagonist’s character and behaviour are always traced to his racial identity. The reason is Shakespeare’s arbitrary attempt to make Othello stand on the complicated crux of contemporary beliefs about black-skinned people and Muslims. Resultantly, reading or producing the play in a society like that of Bengal where racial discrimination and apartheid are practised is to lend a new powerful meaning to the play. Significantly enough, Othello opened Shakespeare’s account in Calcutta. This earliest record of a Shakespeare performance in Calcutta coincided with the publication of The Bengal Gazette in 1780. Since then, playwrights, translators, thespians of Bengal find the play intriguing. In a postcolonial space like Bengal, translation, adaptation, and performance of Othello open up space for heterogeneous significances. This issue would like to trace how Shakespeare’s play has been adapted, translated, performed and criticised in Bengal since pre-Independence period. The focal point of the study is to unfold the adaptation and appropriation of Othello in print media and visual media in Bengal.

The proposed issue welcomes submissions on the following themes (though not limited to them):

Academic/ literary translations

Production oriented translations

Bengali translations/adaptations/abridgements

English translations/adaptations/abridgements

Performing the play in Bengal

Criticisms of the play in Bengal

Submissions should be approximately 2000-2500 words. Please do provide a brief bio at the end of your piece. Since the magazine is geared toward both academic and non-academic readers, the citations within the body of the articles must be minimal, in the form of the name of an author or an idea, etc. The issue is planned for online publication on 1 October, 2023 . Last date for submission: 30 August, 2023.

Please email your submissions to Abhishek Chowdhury (Email: chowdhuryabhishek50@yahoo.in) with the subject line ‘Othello in Bengal’ for consideration.

2024 Cafe Dissensus Issues

Issue 71: January 2024: Discovering the City Called Durgapur: Dwelling, Dreaming and Developing a Sustainable Urban Culture [Last date for submission: 30 November, 2023; Date of publication: 15 January, 2024]

Guest-Editor: Nilanjana Chatterjee (PhD, Assistant Professor of English at Durgapur Government College) and Dr. Anindita Chatterjee (PhD, Associate Professor of English at Durgapur Government College).

Concept Note: Durgapur, the steel hub of West Bengal and a conglomeration of major Indian industries, is a city of modern urban planning dreamt by Nehru (Industrial Policy Resolution of 1956) and designed by Joseph Allen Stein and Benjamin Polk in the mid-1950s. This has led to several development-induced migration—both national and transnational—leading to coming together of heterogenous culture groups and major infrastructural designs. The city has facilitated inter/intra-religious bonding, and multilingual cultural interactions. However, the development has had three major pitfalls—environmental pollution, invisibilisation of pre-colonial history and displacement of indigenous culture groups.

Using the insider-outsider perspective (of the Durgapur Government College based co-editors), the proposed issue intends to trace the polyglot, trans-national urban heritage of the city by including essays on extensive studies of existing research works, historical archives and lived knowledge (preserved in industrial, political, and cultural hubs of Durgapur) of the everyday cityscape. Simultaneously, the issue aims at making visible the embedded pre-colonial historical narratives and the indigenous knowledge systems of the tribal communities. In so doing, the issue proposes to theorize an alternate urbanscape of meaningful indigenous-and-urban coexistence leading to sustainable development and unique city design.

The proposed issue welcomes submissions on the following themes:

• The city and its origin
• The city and its naming
• The city and its archaeological sites
• The city and its mapping
• The royal heritage of Durgapur
• Durgapur and the Mughal Empire
• Colonial Intervention and Slow Violence in Durgapur
• Industrial Heritage Sites in Durgapur
• Durgapur and the Economics of Uniqueness
• Music, Literature, Theatre and Cultural Relocation in Durgapur
• Education Hubs in Durgapur
• Cultural Movements and Collective Memory in Durgapur
• Durgapur as Landscape: of Urban Design and Planning
• Indigenous Culture Groups and Durgapur
• Indigenous Knowledge System and Durgapur
• Durgapur foodscapes: City’s Streets, Markets and Fondas
• Cultural roles of the bazaars of Durgapur
• Festivals in Durgapur
• Interreligious heritage sites in Durgapur
• Green Spots in Durgapur
• Mythical places in Durgapur
• Durgapur Suburbs and identity politics
• Cultural heritage and tourism in Durgapur
• Durgapur and environmental justice

Submission should be approximately of 2000-2500 words. Please do submit a 50-word bio note at the end of the essay. As the issue intends to include academic and non-academic readership, the intext citations need to be minimal and lucid.

Please email your submissions to Nilanjana Chatterjee (nil325@gmail.com) and Anindita Chatterjee (bluehighways071@gmail.com)

Issue 72: March 2024: Epidermal Metaphors and Narratives in India [Last date for submission: 30 January, 2024; Date of publication: 15 March, 2024]

Guest-Editor: Dr. Elwin Susan John, Assistant Professor of English, Sophia College (Autonomous), Mumbai, India.

Concept Note: This collection intends to curate a set of research papers on the representation and discussion of the epidermis in Indian narratives (literary, visual, and performative forms in the Indian context). At present, skin can be perceived as a subject and an object of a cultural imaginary. However, before reaching this phase, historically, the epidermis has undergone several ontological and epistemological changes: the way we understand the epidermis, the identity given to it, its uses, so on and so forth. This collection of essays does not intend to follow a linear historical trajectory within the medical cultural history of the skin, but proposes to collate the most emphatic associations and representations of the epidermis in the Indian context.

The epidermis is not only studied in medicine, as one can find its presence in the disciplines of humanities and social sciences. The timeworn discussions on gender, ethnicity, fashion, identity, medicine etc echo the cultural scrutiny of the body’s periphery- the skin. The metaphors used in language, historical forms of punishments and adornments, visual enactments of skin as a powerful canvas (paintings and cinema), debates on race and gender, production of knowledge in medicine and the technological invasion illustrate the pervasiveness of the skin. It is crossing over disciplines and its presence is felt and seen everywhere.

This volume invites submissions related to the following prospective tangents:

• skin and identity
• skin and gender, religion, caste, class etc
• affect and skin studies
• skin and diaspora
• skin and art history
• subaltern studies and skin
• skin and health humanities
• skin and life writings
• skin and colonialism
• skin and trauma
• skin and memory
• skin and punishments
• skin and folk traditions
• skin and technology
• skin and body modification like tattooing, scarification etc
• skin and purity

Submission should be approximately 2000-2500 words. Audio-video interviews are also welcome. Please do provide a brief bio at the end of your piece. Since the magazine is geared toward both academic and non-academic readers, the citations within the body of the articles must be minimal, in the form of the name of an author or an idea, etc. The issue is planned for online publication by March, 2024. Last date for submission: January 30, 2024. 

Please email your submissions to Dr Elwin Susan John: booksandladders20@gmail.com