2024-06-07

Visual Americas: Image, Text, Performance
edited by Saniye Bilge Mutluay Çetintaş
RIAS Vol. 19, Winter-Fall (2/2026)
(Call open until June 30th, 2025)

As we approach the end of the twenty-first century’s first quarter, we find ourselves in an era that W.J.T. Mitchell famously termed the “pictorial turn”—a period marked by the abundance and explosion of visual imagery. Indeed, the phenomenon is by no means new; our species has always relied on its visual perception, in combination with other senses, creating a hybridity of perception expressed through cultural and artistic products. Visuals and visuality have become the expected and primary end-points of human experience and are key in our interpretation of the world. Moreover, what Mitchell described as a “postlinguistic, postsemiotic rediscovery,” a novel burgeoning of the visual, is placing the image, regardless of the form in which it is created and presented, at the center of our social and cultural interactions. Recognizing the crucial role of visuality in shaping our everyday experiences, we invite scholars and practitioners to contribute to a vibrant dialogue on the role and impact of visuality in the American context.
The issue delves into the multifaceted aspects of the visual culture of the Americas, exploring how visual narratives, from ancient cave drawings to contemporary digital forms, have evolved and continue to shape our understanding of the Americas and/in the world. It will also investigate how contemporary visual practices, empowered by digital technologies, are redefining the ways we produce, circulate, and contextualize images in the translocal, hemispheric, and transoceanic contexts. The key questions the Editors wish the Contributors to address, include, among others:
– How do past or contemporary visual practices inform and influence societies?
– What is the role of digitalization in shaping our perception and experience of imagery?
– How does visuality contribute to and alter meaning-making processes?
– In what ways do ideologies influence the creation and interpretation of visual objects and texts?
– How do visual components enhance literary works and other textual forms?
– How does visuality contribute, shape, and change performance and/or theatrical space?

To explore these issues, we invite papers representing such disciplines as media studies, ethnology, anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, literary studies, linguistics, religious studies, history, or cultural geography, focusing, but not limited to, the following problem areas:

– The text as image, the image as text; i.e., the narrative function of visuality and the image within the text
– Visual storytelling in its various forms (e.g., drawing, painting, television, film, illustrations, graphic novels, comics, video or computer games, social media)
– The interplay of visualities in the performing arts and media
– The aesthetics and politics of visuality
– The impact of digital visual culture in modern society
– Visuality and the concept of visibility as a matter of equality and/or representation in society, politics, culture, and the arts
– Analyses, ideologies, and the ethics of visuality including looking, seeing, making in/visible, showing, or withholding an image
– Policing, or a refusal to regulate, visuality and visibility

The length of the article should be between 4,000 and 6,000 words. The submissions should be delivered to the Review of International American Studies via its Online Journal System by June 30th, 2025.

Submissions MUST include:
1) First Name and Family Name of the Author/Auther
2) Institutional Affiliation of the Author/Auther
3) Author/Auther's ORCID number (www.orcid.org)
4) Author/Auther's website address
5) Author/Auther's email address
6) If the Author/Auther wishes to receive a complementary hard copy of the journal, the physical address to which the copy should be delivered
7) The title of the article
8) A 250-350 words' abstract of the article
9) A 250-350 words' biographical note on the Author/Auther
10) Keywords
11) Disciplines represented (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_academic_disciplines)
12) The text of the article formatted in strict accordance with the principles of the MLA Handbook (9th edition) (length between 4000 and 6000 words).
13) The bibliography of works cited formatted in strict accordance with the principles of the MLA Handbook (9th edition)
15) All images must be submitted in print quality (min. 300 dpi)
16) All copyrighted visual material must be accompanied by permissions or licences issued to the Author.

IMPORTANT: Please, bear in mind that incomplete submissions will be automatically rejected.