NANO: New American Notes Online: An Academic Magazine for Big Ideas in a Small World.

 

Call for Papers: Volume 1, Number 2

Deadline: 27 January 2010 (Wednesday)

Special Theme: Mystery, the Unknown, Surprise

 

What’s up? What went down? How are you doing? What happened? We all want to know what is going on. We want knowledge. We want to solve the crime. We want to get it right. Yet we also like surprise parties and reading a good mystery. This issue of NANO is dedicated to both the sleuth and the mystery maker.

Three question clusters:

 

1. Is storytelling a way to solve a mystery? Is the lyric the poetic mystery par excellence? Is art more about finding one’s way or creating enigma? What is the relationship between mystery and surprise?

 

2. Why are mysteries so powerful? Think of the prevalence of crime shows on television, the fact that there are bookstores dedicated just to mystery novels, and isn’t the chief characteristic of drama the unraveling of an intricate mystery that we call “plot”? What might neuroscience say about the desire to seek answers to vexing questions? Are we hard-wired to be in mystery, or, are we hard-wired to figure out mysteries? And where does pleasure and desire enter into the equation?

 

4. The unknown and the future seem closely connected, but is the unknown also about the past? Religion is concerned with the unknown, and, perhaps, with making us comfortable with the unknown. Adventure and the unknown are correlates too. Does travel writing/cinema satiate our desire for the unknown, but in a safe manner? Do tourists simply like the soft surprise? Does the unknown help us frame ideas of difference and otherness?

 

Possible Topics:

 

suspense
ambiguity
who-done-it
secret
open secret
mystique
mysticism
crime novel
mystery novel
mystery theatre
mystery play
mystery shopper
getting/being lost
religion and the unknown
guessing
negative capability
mystery and cinema
obscurity
difference
the veil
cloak and dagger
magic
surprise attack
surprise party
shock tactic
shock jock
shock therapy
discovery
enigma
aphorism
allegory
Gordian knot
scientific method
reason and unreason

Submission Guidelines:

 

Guidelines: Our average article length is approximately 8 pages, or about 2,000 words. Maximum submission length: 2,500 words (15 minutes for sound/film projects). Please include an abstract (150 word limit). Electronic submission is preferred and should be sent as an email attachment using MS Word (doc.) or Rich Text Format (.rtf). Do not include your name on the attached document, but do include your name and the title of your note in the body of your email. All manuscripts should follow MLA guidelines for format, in-text citations, and works cited. Images, films, artwork, illustrations, and tables will be accepted for the presentation of ideas, and they should be submitted as attachments separate from the text in high-resolution formats.

 

Please send queries or completed notes to editor.nanocrit@gmail.com


Please visit: www.nanocrit.com (site may be under construction)

 

Deadline: 27 January 2010

 

Copyright and Permissions:
NANO expects that all submissions contain original work, not extracts or abridgements. Authors may use their NANO material in other publications provided that NANO is acknowledged as the original publisher. Authors are responsible for obtaining permission for reproducing copyright text, art, video, or other media. Send questions to the editor.