Blue Humanities and the Indian Ocean: South Asian Literary and Cultural Representations

Call for Papers

Special Issue: Blue Humanities and the Indian Ocean: South Asian Literary and Cultural Representations

Journal: Journal of Postcolonial Writing

Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

Manuscript Submission Deadline: 30 November 2026

About the Special Issue

The Journal of Postcolonial Writing invites submissions for its Special Issue titled "Blue Humanities and the Indian Ocean: South Asian Literary and Cultural Representations."

This Special Issue explores the Indian Ocean as a dynamic postcolonial space shaped by colonial histories, environmental transformations, cultural exchanges, and contemporary ecological challenges. Bringing together the perspectives of Blue Humanities and postcolonial studies, the issue examines how South Asian literary, cultural, cinematic, and artistic narratives engage with the ocean as a site of memory, mobility, resistance, ecological imagination, and decolonial thinking.

The Special Issue particularly seeks contributions that investigate how the Indian Ocean reflects issues such as environmental justice, extractive industries, ocean pollution, deep-sea infrastructure, climate change, and the expanding blue economy, while highlighting the intersections of power, resistance, and sustainability in South Asian contexts.

Themes and Topics

Submissions may address, but are not limited to:

• Blue Humanities and postcolonial perspectives

• Literary and cultural representations of the Indian Ocean

• Oceanic memory, mobility, and spatial imagination

• Environmental justice and ocean pollution

• Blue economy, blue infrastructure, and blue media

• Deep-sea mining, industrial fishing, and extractive industries

• Oceanic disasters, slow violence, and climate justice

• Indigenous narratives and coastal ecologies

• Ocean as archive, method, and metaphor

• Non-human studies and oceanic alterity

• Oceanic resistance, resilience, and decolonial futures

Submission Guidelines

• Abstract Deadline: 31 December 2025

• Submit a 150-word abstract, a 100-word author bio, and up to five keywords to bhspecialissue@gmail.com.

• Selected authors will be notified in January 2026.

• Full manuscripts (6,000–8,000 words) are due by 30 November 2026.

• Articles must follow the Journal of Postcolonial Writing author guidelines.

• The Special Issue is expected to be published in 2027 following peer review.

Special Issue Editors

• Abhisek Ghosal, Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines), India

• Ritam Sarkar, Symbiosis International (Deemed University), India

• Sidney I. Dobrin, University of Florida, USA

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