Digital Americas: Global Perspectives on American Narratives Online
RIAS Vol. 20, Fall-Winter (2/2027)
Guest-edited by: Olga Ackroyd and Sara Riccetti Selim
Staff Editor: Gabriela Vargas Cetina
(Call open until June 30th, 2026)

The rapid expansion of digital technologies has reshaped not only how stories circulate, but also how they are produced, mediated, archived, and interpreted. Across the Americas, long characterized by dynamic transitions in media, from print and photography to radio, film, and television—the contemporary shift towards digital environments marks a significant cultural and epistemic threshold. Emerging online literary forms, participatory storytelling practices, and algorithmically shaped modes of reading present challenges and opportunities, and invite innovative theoretical approaches. This issue of Review of International American Studies seeks to investigate how digitality transforms American narratives within hemispheric, transoceanic, and global contexts.

Digital environments have generated a vast ecosystem of literary and para-literary production, including fan fiction communities, transmedia projects, Alternate Reality Games, Wiki-based Storyworlds, and countless hybrid forms that challenge older taxonomies. At the same time, social platforms such as Reddit, TikTok, Substack, and Wattpad have become powerful engines for the creation and circulation of American stories, shaping new forms of canonicity and counter-canonicity outside beyond traditional institutions. These developments raise critical questions about authorship, readership, identity, participation, and power—particularly in relation to the diverse communities that constitute the Americas.

Moreover, digital humanities approaches, archival reconstruction, and data-driven methodologies are redefining how marginalized histories are recovered and how narrative justice can be pursued across North, Central, and South America as well as the Caribbean. The digital sphere has become a contested terrain in which representation, access, and inequality intersect with innovation, creativity, and cultural reinvention.

This issue seeks to examine the cultural, political, and aesthetic implications of these shifts. We welcome scholarship that explores digital literature, online narrativity, platform-based storytelling, and digital cultural production in the Americas from interdisciplinary perspectives.

Key Themes

• Digital Humanities and American Studies: online narratives of American politics and society
• Environmental storytelling in digital literature and media
• The influence of BookTok, Reddit, Wattpad, and other platforms on publishing and reception
• Emerging genres native to the digital sphere: ARGs, Two-Sentence Literature, fanfiction, participatory Storyworlds (SCP foundation, Backrooms Wiki)
• AI-generated literature: authorship, creativity, ethics, and the future of the book
• Digital narratives and marginalization: identity, representation, access, inclusion
• War, conflict, and the Americas: digital imaginaries, gaming narratives, and memory
• Autonomous literary spaces online: new canons, anti-canons, and participatory cultures
• Pedagogies of digital literature; classroom approaches to online texts
• Theories of digital fiction and ergodic literature

Submission Guidelines

Articles should be between 4,000 and 6,000 words. For technical information, please consult Authors' Guidelines (clik here).

Submission Deadline
Please submit your manuscript via the Review of International American Studies Online Journal System by June 30th, 2026.

Each submission MUST include:

1. Author’s First Name and Family Name
2. Institutional Affiliation
3. ORCID Number
4. Website (optional)
5. Email Address
6. Mailing Address for Complimentary Issue (optional)
7. Title of the Article
8. Abstract (250–350 words)
9. Biographical Note (250–350 words)
10. Keywords
11. Academic Disciplines Represented (per: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_academic_disciplines)
12. Full Article (4,000–6,000 words), formatted according to the MLA Handbook (9th ed.)
13. Works Cited in MLA 9
14. Print-quality images (min. 300 dpi), if included
15. Permissions for all copyrighted images or materials

IMPORTANT: Incomplete submissions will be automatically rejected

FOR TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS, PLEASE CONSULT THE AUTHORS' GUILDELINES SECTION.