Call for Papers: Special Issue of Philip Roth Studies, “Haunted Roth”

Philip Roth Studies invites submissions for an upcoming Special Issue titled “Haunted Roth.” A variety of “ghosts” influence and worry Roth and his narrators, manifesting as literary idols and antecedents, lost loved ones, and lingering memories, as well as larger specters of historical trauma and strife. Roth’s protagonists are haunted by emotional and psychological struggles, such as anxiety, fear, and guilt, and physiological illness and pain, and by the prospect of mortality–death itself being one of the central phantoms of Roth’s later works. In The Counterlife, Roth suggests that the idea of haunting is tied to imagination, creativity, and the very act of writing.

“We are all the invention of each other, everybody a conjuration conjuring up everyone else,” Zuckerman says. How might considering Roth’s work in these terms, and analyzing his texts as “ghost stories,” allow us to reconsider and reframe the poetics and preoccupations of his career? What are the political or historical implications of the “ghost stories” that pervade Roth’s fiction?

The journal welcomes both full-length articles and shorter notes on this subject. Essays should be between 5,000 and 10,000 words in length, and notes should not exceed 2,500 words. A brief abstract and author bio should accompany each submission. Manuscripts must be prepared according to the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing, 8th edition. All submissions must be sent via email as an attached document. Please see “Checklist for Contributors” for detailed information on the MLA and the journal’s house style, and direct any submissions and inquiries to Matthew Shipe and Maggie McKinley, executive coeditors, at philiprothstudies@gmail.com.

 

The deadline for submissions is October 1, 2025.