MFS: Modern Fiction Studies

Hopkins Press does not require potential contributors to pay an article submission fee to be considered for publication in any of the scholarly academic Journals that we publish. The literary publications that we publish (The Hopkins Review, The Sewanee Review and The Yale Review) do require a submission fee. Websites that purport to be affiliated with a Hopkins Press Journal and that require to payment of an article submission fee, other than the literary journals mentioned above, are fraudulent. Do not provide payment information. Instead, we ask that you contact William Breichner, Hopkins Press Journals Publisher: [email protected].

(These guidelines apply to general submission. To submit an essay for a special issue, please see those specific instructions.)

Mfs invites the submission of articles (6,000-9,000 words) offering historical, interdisciplinary, theoretical, and cultural approaches to modern and contemporary narrative. Please visit our online submission system to upload your essay: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mfs

Documentation format should include internal citation, endnotes, and full Works Cited in accordance with the latest edition of the MLA Style Manual. Mfs welcomes the submission of illustrations. Low-resolution images are acceptable for submission, but authors must provide high-resolution images for publication.

Publication is contingent on authors granting exclusive license to Johns Hopkins UP to publish their essays for the Department of English at Purdue University. Authors may subsequently reprint their essays in books that they publish, provided they acknowledge the material's previous publication in Mfs.

Address editorial correspondence to

The Editors
Modern Fiction Studies
Purdue University
Department of English
500 Oval Drive
West Lafayette, IN 47907-2038
Phone: (765) 494-3758
FAX: (765) 494-3780
E-mail: [email protected]

The Hopkins Press Journals Ethics and Malpractice Statement can be found at the ethics-and-malpractice page.

Peer Review Policy

MFS: Modern Fiction Studies publishes original essays of 6,000-9,000 words. We do not permit simultaneous submission. We have initial in-house screening of essays. If we decide not to send an essay out for external review, it will be rejected within a month. Essays we like are sent out to two external readers using the blind review system. After external review, essays are either 1) accepted, 2) accepted contingent on revision, or 3) marked as revise and resubmit. This review takes around 6-9 weeks. If accepted contingent, the author must address concerns of the external reports and send us a revised essay and explain to us how the revised version engages the reader reports. A decision on these essays is then made in house, typically within a week or two of receiving the revision. Authors who are invited to revise and resubmit must also explain how they’ve addressed the readers’ concerns. We send the revised and resubmitted essay out again for external review (often to one or both of the original readers). This may take another 6-9 weeks.

All book reviews are solicited. We do not consider unsolicited reviews.

(Post-)Migration and the Poetics of Affect in Fiction 

The special issue is committed to exploring how works of fiction register and configure affects in response to different forms of migration and (post-)migration. As both intimate and impersonal sensations, affects inscribe bodies into the social world of encounter (Seigworth and Gregg). While encounters with the social world are always unpredictable and messy, in the context of (post-)migration they typically unfold under conditions of dependency, precarity, and hierarchical relations. Experiences of displacement, the ambivalences of belonging and nonbelonging, the vulnerabilities arising from racist experiences, and the anxieties linked to both assimilationist demands and repatriation policies exert affective pressures that migrants must navigate and process (Piocos). In fact, many affective patterns that emerge from experiences of migration and (post-)migration are highly ambiguous, raising substantial ethical questions about the forceful undercurrents, obstinacies, and even refusals shaping contemporary societies. Affects sustain relationality but also interrupt it. Approaching migration and (post-)migration from the perspective of affect—the embodied and somatic—therefore provides an opportunity to bring into view the affective demands and tensions that enable and constrain possibilities of social collectivity today.

The special issue foregrounds the productive role of narrative fiction in modeling and generating affects that are capable of intervening critically in dominant affective economies and opening up new modes of expressivity and forms of sociality. Texts by writers such as Abdulrazak Gurnah, Zadie Smith, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Teju Cole, Dinaw Mengestu, Ocean Vuong, Boubacar Boris Diop, Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, Valeria Luiselli, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Namwali Serpell, Bernardine Evaristo, and many more use the space of fiction to explore the affective labor that experiences of (post-)migration involve.

By examining the poetics of affect in relation to (post-)migration, the special issue seeks to initiate a conversation about the literary language, forms, grammars, and styles that both register and transform the forces binding some bodies together while keeping others apart. Which affects and affective patterns arise out of migration and (post-)migration and how are they turned into something literary? How is the intersection between affect and race modeled in fiction and how does the articulation of affects navigate sociopolitical pressures and ideologies? What are the political stakes of detachment from hegemonic structures of feeling—and does detachment open up pathways toward liberation and transformation (Yao)? And which affective promises operate as technologies of cultural integration, binding migrants to hegemonic norms (Ahmed)? Finally, how is the engagement with affect and (post-)migration in fiction shaped by the demands and expectations of the contemporary, hyper-commercialized, and Anglocentric book market? While the distinction between affect and emotion has been widely debated in recent scholarship, the issue adopts a broad understanding of affects as physical forces that underpin, accompany, and complicate codified emotions, opening subjects to the pressures of the social.

We invite contributions that focus on the forms and affordances of fiction to foreground the unexpected, inconvenient, and seemingly minor affects that both emerge from and shape experiences of migration and (post-)migration.

Please submit an abstract of 250 words by December 2026 to [email protected]; full essays of 6000–9000 words are due by June 2027. Essays should be formatted according to the latest MLA style manual.

References

Ahmed, Sara. “Happy Objects.” Affect Theory Reader, edited by Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth, Duke UP, 2010, pp. 29–51.

Piocos, Carlos M., III. Affect, Narratives and Politics of Southeast Asian Migration. Routledge, 2021.

Seigworth, Gregory J., and Melissa Gregg. “An Inventory of Shimmers.” Affect Theory Reader, edited by Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth, Duke UP, 2010, pp. 1–25.

Yao, Xine. Disaffected: The Cultural Politics of Unfeeling in Nineteenth-Century America. Duke UP, 2021.

In addition to its continuing commitment to publishing the best scholarship on modern and contemporary fiction, MFS is also especially interesting in pursuing topics of current importance to literature and the humanities in general, including:

• Critical AI Studies and The Fictionality of AI/Machine Learning/Large Language Models
• Fictions of Conspiracy Theory
• The Future of Literary Studies in the University
• Populism and its Fictions
• Discourses of Neoliberalism
• Migration and Nation
• Discourses of Sustainability
• Literary Studies, Climate Change, Species Extinction
• Fictions and New Directions in Critical Race Theory

eTOC (Electronic Table of Contents) alerts can be delivered to your inbox when this or any Hopkins Press journal is published via your ProjectMUSE MyMUSE account. Visit the eTOC instructions page for detailed instructions on setting up your MyMUSE account and alerts. 

Editor

Robert P. Marzec

Associate Editor

Maren Linett

Managing Editor

Frida Beckman

Editorial Assistants

Rochel Bergman
Jeeyoung Choi
Emily M. Pearson

Project Manager

Daniel Froid

Editorial Collective

Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra, Pennsylvania State University        
Frida Beckman, Stockholm University
Michael Boyden, University of Fribourg
Debra Rae Cohen, University of South Carolina
Elizabeth DeLoughrey, UCLA        
Anne Garland Mahler, University of Virginia     
Katharina Gerund, Zürich University   
Joseph Keith, Binghamton University
Timothy Melley, Miami University         
Kalpana Seshadri, Boston College           
Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan, Rice University       
Aarthi Vadde, Duke University        
Jay Watson, University of Mississippi    

Purdue Advisory Board

Marlo Denice David  
John Duvall     
Wendy Flory          
Sandor Goodhart      
Shaun F. D. Hughes      
Robert Paul Lamb          
Alfred J. López          
Jennifer Freeman Marshall          
Daniel Morris          
Nancy J. Peterson          
Arkady Plotnitsky          
Aparajita Sagar

Editorial Advisory Board

Paul Armstrong, Brown University
Michael Awkward, University of Michigan
Herman Beavers, University of Pennsylvania          
Michael Bérubé, Pennsylvania State University          
Stephen J. Burn, University of Glasgow          
Debra Rae Cohen, University of South Carolina          
Santanu Das, All Souls College, Oxford   
Laura Doyle, University of Massachusetts          
Jonathan Eburne, Pennsylvania State University          
Anne Fernald, Fordham University          
Ellen G. Friedman, College of New Jersey          
Scott Herring, Indiana University          
Peter Kalliney, University of Kentucky          
John T. Matthews, Boston University          
Deborah E. McDowell, University of Virginia          
Mark McGurl, Stanford University          
James McNaughton, University of Alabama          
Alan Nadel, University of Kentucky          
Kinohi Nishikawa, Princeton University          
Stacey Olster, SUNY, Stony Brook          
Robert Dale Parker, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign          
Adam Parkes, University of Georgia          
Rajagopalan Radhakrishnan, University of California, Irvine          
Judith Roof, Rice University          
Michael Rubenstein, SUNY, Stony Brook    
Paul Saint-Amour, University of Pennsylvania    
Ramón Saldívar, Stanford University    
Urmila Seshagiri, University of Tennessee, Knoxville     
Anna Snaith, King’s College London     
Stephen Hong Sohn, Fordham University          
Siobhan Somerville, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign          
Susan Strehle, SUNY, Binghamton          
John J. Su, Marquette University          
Phillip Wegner, University of Florida

Send books for review to:

The Editors
Modern Fiction Studies
Purdue University
Department of English
500 Oval Drive
West Lafayette IN 47907-1389

Please send book review copies to the address above. Review copies received by the Johns Hopkins University Press office will be discarded.

Abstracting & Indexing Databases

• Clarivate
  • Arts & Humanities Citation Index
  • Current Contents
  • Web of Science
• Current Contents: Arts & Humanities
• De Gruyter Saur
  • Dietrich's Index Philosophicus
  • IBZ - Internationale Bibliographie der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaftlichen Zeitschriftenliteratur
  • Internationale Bibliographie der Rezensionen Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaftlicher Literatur
• EBSCOhost
  • Academic Search Alumni Edition, 6/1/1990-
  • Academic Search Complete, 06/1990-
  • Academic Search Elite, 6/1/1990-
  • Academic Search Premier, 6/1/1990-
  • Biography Index: Past and Present (H.W. Wilson), vol.29, 1983-vol.55, no.1, 2009
  • Book Review Digest Plus (H.W. Wilson), Jan.1983-
  • Current Abstracts, 1/1/2000-
  • Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective: 1907-1984, 04/1965-03/1983
  • Humanities Abstracts, 06/1983-
  • Humanities Index (Online), 1983/01-
  • Humanities Index Retrospective: 1907-1984, 04/1965-03/1983
  • Humanities International Complete, 03/1982-
  • Humanities International Index, 03/1982-
  • Humanities Source, 04/1965-
  • Humanities Source Ultimate, 04/1965-
  • MasterFILE Complete, 03/1982-
  • MasterFILE Elite, 06/1990-
  • MasterFILE Premier, 06/1990-
  • MasterFILE: Main Edition, 06/1990-
  • MLA International Bibliography (Modern Language Association)
  • OmniFile Full Text Mega (H.W. Wilson), 6/1/1983-
  • OmniFile Full Text Select, 10/2011-
  • Poetry & Short Story Reference Center, 3/1/1982-
  • RILM Abstracts of Music Literature (Repertoire International de Litterature Musicale)
  • Russian Academy of Sciences Bibliographies
  • Social Sciences Index Retrospective: 1907-1983, 1965/03-1973/09
  • SocINDEX, 06/1982-
  • SocINDEX with Full Text, 6/1/1982-
  • Sociology Source Ultimate, 06/1982-
  • TOC Premier (Table of Contents), 1/1/1995-
  • Women's Studies International, 06/1970-
• Elsevier BV
  • Scopus, 2002-
• Gale
  • Academic ASAP, 03/1987-
  • Gale Academic OneFile
  • Gale Academic OneFile Select, 03/1987-
  • Gale General OneFile, 03/1987-
  • Gale Literature: Book Review Index
  • Gale OneFile: High School Edition, 06/1985- , dropped
  • Gale OneFile: Leadership and Management, 03/1971 - , dropped
  • General Reference Center Gold, 03/1980-
  • General Reference Centre International, 3/1980-
  • InfoTrac Custom, 3/1987-
  • MLA International Bibliography (Modern Language Association)
• OCLC
  • ArticleFirst, vol.38, no.1, 1992-vol.57, no.4, 2011
  • Electronic Collections Online, vol.40, no.3, 1994-vol.57, no.4, 2011
  • Humanities Index (Online), 1983/01-
  • Periodical Abstracts, v.35, n.1, 1989-v.56, n.4, 2010
• Personal Alert (E-mail)
• ProQuest
  • Art, Design & Architecture Collection, 04/01/1989-
  • Arts & Humanities Database, 04/01/1989-
  • Arts Premium Collection, 4/1/1989-
  • Literary Journals Index Full Text
  • MLA International Bibliography (Modern Language Association)
  • Periodicals Index Online
  • Professional ProQuest Central, 04/01/1989-
  • ProQuest 5000, 04/01/1989-
  • ProQuest Central, 04/01/1989-
  • Research Library, 04/01/1989-
  • RILM Abstracts of Music Literature (Repertoire International de Litterature Musicale)

Abstracting & Indexing Sources

• Children's Book Review Index (Active) (Print)
• Abstracts of English Studies (Ceased) (Print)
• Academic Index (Ceased) (Print)
• Chicano Index (Ceased) (Print)
• Index to Book Reviews in the Humanities (Ceased) (Print)
• Middle East: Abstracts and Index (Ceased) (Print)
• MLA Abstracts of Articles in Scholarly Journals (Ceased) (Print)

Source: Ulrichsweb Global Serials Directory.

0.1 (2024)
0.3 (Five-Year Impact Factor)
0.00015 (Eigenfactor™ Score)

Rank in Category (by Journal Impact Factor):
Note: While journals indexed in AHCI and ESCI are receiving a JIF for the first time in June 2023, they will not receive ranks, quartiles, or percentiles until the release of 2023 data in June 2024.
 

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Readers include: Scholars and students of literary criticism

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