Thematic Issue 37/4: Chiffons de Papier and the Resurgence of the Epistolary: Metamorphoses, Dynamics, and Confluences

In an increasingly digitalized world, hand-written letters were once the main media of communication and now face imminent extinction. The secular habit of transposing dialogs in absentia in a white piece of paper, during millennia considered ordinary, have become rare. The digital age has changed our experiences of written interaction in everyday life and from e-mail to different apps for short fragmented dialogues; we see the resurgence of modus epistolaris and these polymorphic, nomadic and paradoxical texts.

On the context of transformation, this issue of Linha D’Água has the objective precisely to analyze, in a multi and interdisciplinary perspective, the contemporaneity of the epistolary and examine the metamorphoses triggered by the rise of digital forms of communication.

We welcome reflection on the development of digital humanities, which present significant challenges to the study and analysis of epistolary discourse, insofar as the potentialities of digital technology provide access to and exploration to various dimensions that were once difficult to circumscribe and systematize, covering the philological, linguistic, historical and sociocultural levels.

This thematic issue also encourages investigations on various sides of the epistolary that attracts great interest: primarily, questioning the letter as fragmentary, autobiographical text and highly significant historical and sociological document. In parallel, the use of epistolary resources in literature, including the study of epistolary novels and pamphlet letter, as well as their presence in cinema, are desirable complementary approaches in line with the interdisciplinary dynamic that guides this issue.

 

The Linha D’Água journal welcomes submissions in Portuguese, English, French or Spanish and is indexed in: Web of Science - Clarivate (ESCI), MLA, MIAR, Latindex, REDIB, Linguistic Bibliography, DOAJ, among others.

 

NEW Submission deadline: May 31st, 2024.

Expected Publication: December 2024.

 

To access the submission guidelines, please click on https://www.revistas.usp.br/linhadagua/about/submissions

 

Guest Editors:

Isabel Roboredo Seara
irseara@gmail.com
Universidade Aberta (UAb), Portugal
Linguistics Research Centre of NOVA University Lisbon (CLUNL/NOVA), Portugal.

Renata Ferreira Costa
renatacosta@academico.ufs.br
Universidade Federal do Sergipe (UFS), Brazil.