Call for Proposals: Special Issue on Unsettling Environmental Studies, Fall 2024

Guest Editors: Running Grass, Antioch University and Cynthia Tomashow, Antioch University

This journal presents us with an opportunity to consider how new ways of approaching environmental studies might challenge the established ways of teaching in the Western Academy. Contingencies will provide a space to discuss new models for curriculum, pedagogy and interdisciplinary learning within environmental studies. Academic settings seem to be most compelling and impactful when they intersect with a richly multicultural and dynamically interactive networks. Learning emerges from the practitioners and theorists who are working together within diverse communities to provide equitable access to Nature, ensure climate justice and resolution, work toward healthy living spaces that protect biodiversity.

The purpose of this special issue of Contingencies is to provide a space for the discussion of new pedagogical approaches, practical and theoretical models for curriculum, instruction and the interdisciplinarity contexts for environmental studies. We’ve named this special edition: Unsettling Environmental Studies. To UNSETTLE is an active verb. It calls for disquiet and dissonance. It seeks to upend the predictable and to throw open concepts of where and when and how we learn best. It pushes us to invite different perspectives and cultures, modes of learning, and ways of being in the world…to better understand our planetary ecosystem and its dynamic intersection with the built infrastructure and the people who live there. We are open to ideas that the intersection of rural and urban as well…not intending to limit the scope of new ideas in environmental studies.

We’d like you to consider submitting proposals that ‘unsettle’ traditional ways of learning about the environment in ways that open possibilities for actionable social justice, ecological survival and the reshaping of cities.

Submissions accepted on a rolling basis.

Proposals should fall within the scope of the journal and address relevant, new, or underexplored areas of the topic that reflect recent theoretical, empirical, and/or pedagogical developments. Proposals should include a title and a narrative of 300 – 500 words with MLA citations of sources.

Proposals are due March 1st, 2024.
Full articles are due May 31st, 2024.

As editors of a new journal, we are inhabiting this strangeness alongside you, mindful of the risks and confusions. We welcome submissions in areas including but not limited to the following list, and are particularly interested in work that engages with the new challenges and demands of the present moment.

• Multicultural approaches to environmental studies as a mode of instruction
• Teaching intersections, appropriations, and divergences across cultures
• Interdisciplinarity as a mode of teaching and study
• Teaching research methods in an urban environmental context
• Globalizing curriculum and disciplines
• Teaching place-making in a global environmental context
• Teaching across national and linguistic boundaries
• Experiential learning in the urban environment
• Considering the interrelationships of rural and urban life
• Teaching concepts like “the other”
• The role of technology in connecting learners globally
• Teaching controversial issues
• Teaching about race and racism in a global environmental context
• Teaching about class, poverty, and economic justice in a global urban environmental context
• Teaching about intersectionality
• Teaching about social movements in a global environmental context
• Activism as a pedagogical framework

Submissions should be sent according to the below guidelines. Submit by filling out this submission form, then emailing any files to contingencies-journal@nyu.edu with “Submission” in the subject line.

Submission Guidelines

• Submissions must consist of original work that has not been previously published. They may take the form of scholarly essays, qualitative and quantitative research studies, assignment models, or reflections on teaching practice/experience. Because the journal is interdisciplinary, submissions should briefly explain any discipline-specific jargon or acronyms.
• Submitters should edit their work carefully before submitting it for initial consideration. Submissions that contain extensive errors of fact or style will not be reviewed.
• The journal focuses on higher education pedagogy; work involving examples from secondary education is acceptable if its main focus is on higher education.
• Text submissions must take the form of a Word document .docx file; not a pdf or any other format. Submissions must be double-spaced, use 12-point type and standard margins. They must be prepared for anonymous review, with no individually-identifiable information or references to the author(s) in the manuscript.
• Illustrations, figures, audio, and video are welcome; they should be included in the document to show position. Upon acceptance they will be requested as separate files.
• Submissions that include photos, audio, video, etc. depicting living persons must be accompanied by the appropriate permissions for sharing those images (what is appropriate depends on the laws in the nation where the images are produced). The editors will review submissions and alert you if they see anything that may violate FERPA or copyright law, but it is your responsibility to keep in compliance with those regulations. For US regulations, see http://www.nyu.edu/about/policies-guidelines-compliance/policies-and-guidelines/FERPA.html for information on FERPA and http://www.nyu.edu/footer/copyright-and-fair-use.html for information on copyright and fair use.
• Length should be between 1500 and 7500 words (not including citations and list of works cited).
• Documentation should follow MLA format.
• The minimum resolution for images should be at least 600 px wide with 72 DPI in JPG or PNG file formats only.
• The maximum file size for video is 2GB.
• Submissions to Contingencies cannot be under simultaneous consideration by another publication.
• There is no fee for publishing in the journal.
• Reviews normally take two to three months. If a reviewed submission is deemed publishable with revision, it will be returned, with feedback, to the submitter, who will then have one to two months to revise and resubmit.
• When resubmitting their revised work, the submitter should include a version of the submission with changes visibly tracked, annotated, or summarized in a narrative statement.