Humanités des pestes et des épidémies

Plagues and Epidemics. Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities (2021)

Call for chapters

 To think about the human being is also to reflect on his capacity to react, resist and overcome the various diseases that accompany the development of human societies. Some of the most devastating pests and epidemics- with the greatest consequences in the way man thinks of himself have been the Plague of Athens (5th century BC), the Antonine Plague (2nd century), the Justinian Plague (6th century), the Bubonic Plague, also known as the Black Death (1347 - 1351), and the Spanish Flu (20th century), in addition to other epidemic outbreaks such as smallpox, influenza, HIV, Ebola or, more recently, outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome SARS (2002), Middle East respiratory syndrome MERS-CoV (2012) and COVID-19 (2019), designation given by the World Health Organization to the disease caused by the new coronavirus SARS-COV-2. 

In each period, these sudden outbreaks of pestilences have brought about changes in the way human beings and societies organize themselves, leading to important and deep lifestyle adjustments. 

The book Plagues and Epidemics. Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities aims to bring together scientific studies contributing to the knowledge of the influence of pests and epidemics on culture and society, valuing a cross-disciplinary thinking of human understanding of the causes and consequences of such outbreaks. In the various fields of the Humanities, from narratives to more artistic creations, there is an immense cultural legacy that must be studied. 

Theoretical and Empirical contributions are equally welcome (including case studies), within the Humanities. 

Topics covered by the book: 

- Analysis of the knowledge of pests from the Classical Antiquity to the Contemporary; 

- Communicative practices, mediated or not, in times of epidemic and pandemic; 

- Neologisms, semantic and lexical changes caused by plagues and epidemics; 

- Metaphorical uses of expressions from the field of science, such as "contagion" or "viral"; 

- Narratives of pestilences; 

- Literary representations of plagues and epidemics; - Cultural practices motivated by epidemiological outbreaks; 

- Philosophical perspectives on epidemics and pestilences; 

- Artistic representations inspired by the epidemics context. 

We thank you for your collaboration in fulfilling the editing standards described below. 

Texts should be sent to pestes.volume2021@mail.uma.pt by July 2nd, 2021, in Word format. All texts will be submitted to scientific evaluation (blind peer review). 

The authors will be notified of Acceptance/Rejectionuntil September 3rd, 2021. 

1. Languages accepted: 

- Studies will be accepted in Portuguese, German, Spanish, French, English and Italian. 

2. Text formatting: 

- Dimensions and formatting: body text = maximum of 15 pages A4 (equivalent to about 38,500 characters, including spaces) and minimum of 9 pages A4; body = 11, Calibri, 1.5 space; footnotes = 10, Calibri, single space; 

- Title centred, size 12, bold, Calibri; 

- Indicate author(s), affiliation (University, Institute, UI&D or other), e-mail address, size 11, Calibri; 

- Present two abstracts (each with a maximum of 250 words each), one in the language of the article and other in English, followed by the respective keywords (maximum of 5). 

2.1 For the citation of authors follow the APA standards (7th ed.); all citations must be duly identified. 

2.2. Quotations with more than 3 lines must be indented (1 cm forward on the left side). 

2.3. a) use of italics: - in the titles of works, modern monographs, magazines and thematic collections; b) use inverted commas (" ") in citations of modern texts; c) Do not to use italics in the Latin abbreviations (op. cit., loc. cit., cf., ibid., in...). 

3. Footnotes: Footnotes should be short. 

4. Images/Graphics/Tables - Graphic elements accompanying the text should be duly identified and numbered. - The images must be in .jpeg file format, with minimum resolution of 300dpi's, copyright-free and accompanied by official proof of assignment or purchase of rights to publications ofacademic nature. Each text must have no more than 4 images (the printing will not be made in colour). 

5. Final bibliography: It should be limited to the essential or to the titles cited. The bibliographical references should be formatted in accordance with the APA norms (7th edition). 

6. Publication The Volume will be published in a Portuguese publishing house with extensive experience in scientific publications. 7. Copyright Statement The texts submitted for publication must be original and the authors assign their rights for publication. 

Editors: Joaquim Pinheiro, Mario Franco e Samuel Mateus University of Madeira Faculty of Arts and Humanities Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures