Call for Papers til ROMANTIK #9

Thematic Call for Papers: Re-enchantment in Romanticism and Later Currents

For the 2020-issue of Romantik – Journal for the Study of Romanticisms, we are welcoming papers that stress the elements of re-enchantment – both within the current of romanticism and later.

The Enlightenment project of disenchantment was accompanied by a current of re-enchantment that came to flourish with romanticism. The elements of re-enchantment comprised of sacralization of art, the living nature, the role of the poet as poeta vates (a visionary seer), holistic models of reality, and mystical experiences (epiphanies). The re-enchantment was, in other words, not a return to traditional religion, but rather mirrored elements from the current of modern esotericism. After romanticism, the dialectics between disenchantment and re-enchantment became increasingly complicated. On the one hand, positivism heralded a new era of disenchantment which manifested as realism and naturalism in literature and art. On the other hand, monistic currents (Carus, Haeckel, Fechner) established a modernist philosophy of nature that wielded influence on both modernist literature, esoterism and scientific discourse. In the late 19th century and in the beginning of the 20th century, the program of re-enchantment was prevalent in symbolism. As in the era of romanticism, the symbolist poet assumed the role of poeta vates. But also in the 20th, we see many examples of re-enchantment, among others in modernism and the avant-garde as well as magical realism. And in 21st century posthumanism, ecology and philosophy of nature are currents that seem to favour re-enchantment of nature as an alternative to the instrumental rationality.

The thematic range is wide enough to encourage papers on a variety of different epochs and literatures.

 Submission date is June 1st 2020.