Hi folks,

Some of you may already have seen this Call For Papers; sorry for any
duplication.

All best,

Matt Soar


Dr. Matthew Soar 
Department of Communication Studies
Concordia University

E: [log in to unmask]
W: (514) 848-2424 x2542





Call for Papers: ³Text²

An upcoming issue of M/C Journal
Recent issues include ³Fight²; ³Share² and ³Logo²
Other upcoming issues: ³Fibre² and ³Joke²

M/C Journal is an online, blind peer-reviewed journal of media and culture
<http://www.media-culture.org.au/about.html>


³Text²

Co-editors: 
Catriona Mills (School of English, Media Studies, and Art History,
University of Queensland)
Matt Soar (Dept of Communication Studies, Concordia University)

Deadline for submissions: 13 October 2003
Release date: 3 December 2003


Introduction

In 1976, ad critic Leslie Savan began her first ever column for New York's
Village Voice magazine with a short piece called ŒThis typeface is changing
your life.¹ In it, she discussed the ways in which one particular sans serif
typeface - Helvetica - had insinuated itself into American daily life to the
extent that "The 'signs of the times' can be found on the literal signs of
the times. The use of Helvetica on so many of them expresses our need for
security, for visual proof - if nothing else - that the world's machinery
still runs."

In truth, our everyday lives are suffused with textual encounters - in the
letterforms that come together to provide newspaper reading; subway,
washroom and street signage; directions for taking medicine; film titles and
webpages; bus tickets and advertisements, etc. How, then, does the
construction and arrangement of letterforms imply security, as Savan
suggests, or - for that matter - friendliness, or menace?

For Beatrice Warde, writing in 1932, this was the wrong question altogether.
The task in hand ideally involved absolute transparency: "The book
typographer has the job of erecting a window between the reader inside the
room and that landscape which is the author's words. He may put up a
stained-glass window of marvelous beauty, but a failure as a window; that
is, he may use some rich superb type like text gothic that is something to
be looked at, not through."

What we're looking for

Between the positions taken up by Warde and Savan lies a whole realm of
artifacts and encounters that beg critical analysis, and it is these
phenomena that constitute the theme for this issue of M/C. We are seeking
fresh, informed interventions that bring media, literary, and cultural
studies perspectives to bear on:

Letterforms: typefaces (including their conception and application), fonts
(the 'cuts' of typefaces that reside on computer hard drives or in printers'
trays); handwriting, calligraphy, comic book 'inking', tattoos, graffiti,
homemade shop signs;

Textual studies: the search for authenticity - including word choices used
in manuscripts; textual author-ity located in the mark of pen or typeset
letter on paper; translations; first editions; facsimile editions and
annotated editions; electronic versions (e-books, pdf files, CD-ROMs); book
marketing based on the external rather than internal text (blurbs,
pseudo-historical typefaces, typefaces as a means of facilitating
author-recognition);

The act of composition: the increasing interest on-screen in the manual
production of the text (eg Nicole Kidman 'communing' with Virginia Woolf
through her attempted replication of Woolf's handwriting in preparation for
The Hours, or the use of handwriting on-screen in Possession); novel
structures that foreground the act of writing (epistolary fiction, diary
forms, plots driven by forgery or by the immutability of the written word);

Typefaces: cultural/critical histories of particular typefaces; media and
the connotations of 'native', or media-specific typefaces (dot-matrix and
the cash register; courier and the typewriter);

Type in motion: film title sequences and television advertising; broadcast
graphics (TV station identifiers/bumpers); 'pop-up' music videos; TV weather
maps; CNN's stock market tickertapes; Sesame Street, etc.

Submission guidelines

Newly written, short articles (1500 words max.) that speak to these themes
from media/cultural/literary/design studies perspectives, broadly conceived.
For details on style and format, please visit:
<http://www.media-culture.org.au/submission.html>

All inquiries and submissions should be emailed to the editors:
<[log in to unmask]>

Article deadline: 13 October 2003
Release date: 3 December 2003