Call For Current Issue 2025-2026
Proteus, the undergraduate journal of comparative literature at Rutgers University, is accepting submissions for our Spring 2026 edition, Elsewhere, from November 3, 2025 until February 1, 2026.
We seek both critical and creative interventions from undergraduate students of the arts and humanities. We seek submissions that venture Elsewhere, exploring the borders between heres and theres, spaces and places, that which is beyond our where and when. How does elsewhere persuade us via perspectives spatial, political, artistic, cultural, or environmental? What does elsewhere imply, signal, or mark? How does literature, film, visual art, music, or digital media conceive or disconceive of elsewhere?
Papers must be submitted no later than 11:59 p.m. on February 1. Late submissions will not be accepted. We accept any scholarly or critical intervention engaging with, but not limited to: literary criticism, philosophy, women’s and gender studies, queer theory, critical theory, and global literature. Please send writing between 1800–3000 words. We also invite poetry or creative nonfiction that responds to themes of elsewhere; please submit no more than 3 poems or one creative essay between 200–1000 words. Finally, we invite visual engagements with Elsewhere; please send up to 5 static images accompanied by a 150 word introduction. Please include alongside all submissions a brief biography. For further inquiries regarding the journal or submissions, please write to rutgers.proteusjournal@gmail.com.