The Journal of Historical Fictions evolved from the first conference of the Historical Fictions Research Network, held at Anglia Ruskin University, UK, in 2016. The Journal is an Open Access, double-blind peer-reviewed scholarly journal, published online at historicalfictionsjournal.org.
Narrative constructions of the past constitute a powerful discursive system for the production of cognitive and ideological representations of identity, agency, and social function, and for the negotiation of conceptual relationships between societies in different times and lived experience. The licences of fiction, especially in mass culture, define a space in which the pursuit of narrative and meaning is permitted to slip the chains of sanctioned historical truths to explore the deep desires and dreams that lie beneath all constructions of the past. Historical fictions measure the gap between the pasts we are permitted to know and those we wish to know, interacting between the meaning-making narrative and the narrative-resistant nature of the past.
A special issue of JHF is now devoted to the topic of sound:
What is the role of sound in historical fictions? How can we try to replicate what the world sounded like in the past? What is the role of music in period dramas? Why are contemporary musicals with historical settings so popular? How can sound be described in historical novels?
The Journal of Historical Fictions is looking for papers on any aspect of “sound”, broadly defined (music, mechanical sounds, songs that tell a historical narrative, voices, etc.) for a special issue on sound in historical fictions, ‘The Sound of the Past’. Please send completed articles of 6,000-8,000 words to mail@historicalfictionsjournal.org by 1 January 2020 (see our submission guidelines here: http://historicalfictionsjournal.org/submit.html).
We also have a rolling deadline for articles that relate directly to research and teaching questions on historical fictions of any kind, from all scholarly disciplines, and we welcome spontaneous submissions.
The Journal of Historical Fictions welcomes proposals from disciplines as diverse as archaeology, literature, film, history, media studies, art history, musicology, reception studies, and museum studies. We encourage ambitious approaches of high quality, using new methodologies to support research into larger trends. The Journal aims to foster more theoretically informed understandings of the mode across historical periods, cultures, media and languages.