Imagining the Railway, 1900 to the Present
Mobility Humanities Special Issue (for publication January 2028)
CALL FOR PAPERS
“Imagining the Railway, 1900 to the Present”
Guest Editors:
Adam Borch, Åbo Akademi University, Finland
Jason Finch, Åbo Akademi University, Finland
Frederik Van Dam, Radboud University, Netherlands
We invite scholars to submit article proposals for a special issue in the open-access journal Mobility Humanities on the cultural impact of the railway since 1900. Scholars from any disciplinary background are welcome, although the special issue is likely to be of particular interest to those working in areas like mobility humanities, literary, film or visual studies, cultural geography and transport history.
In the nineteenth century, the expansion and use of trains changed people’s perception of the world. Following Wolfgang Schivelbusch’s pioneering work, scholars have documented the myriad ways in which the nineteenth-century railway changed the experience of travelling and influenced the form and creation of different cultural media. The history of the railway in the more recent past, in which the train’s dominance as a form of transport was challenged by the automobile and the aeroplane, has received comparatively little attention. This special issue aims to highlight the fact that the railway remained a significant influence on artistic development and cultural practices: as novels by Graham Greene and Toni Morrison attest, for instance, trains have been invested with new imaginative possibilities during the twentieth century and since, and these are deserving of sustained critical attention.
This special issue will therefore explore the literary and cultural significance of the railway from 1900 to the present. In doing so, it seeks to take stock of new insights from the fields of mobility studies and infrastructure studies. We welcome proposals that focus on the relationship between the railway and literature, cinema, the visual arts, music, games, and/or other cultural modes.
Themes to be explored include, but are not limited to, the following:
• the railway and (literary and/or artistic) form
• gender and sexual identity
• (post)colonial perspectives
• railway and war
• experiences of long-distance travel
• experiences of commuting
• spaces of the railway
• the railway’s impact on landscape and environment
• comparisons between literary and visual depictions of the railway
If you are interested, please send a proposal of max. 500 words to the editors no later than 30 September 2025. All abstracts should include a title as well as the names, affiliations and email addresses of all authors. Please also provide a short bio (max. 100 words) for each author.
Important Dates
• 30 September 2025: deadline for submission of article proposals.
• 31 October 2025: authors notified about acceptance/rejection of their proposal
• 30 June 2026: deadline for submission of full articles (c.8,000 words) for peer review
• 1 January 2028: publication of Special Issue in Mobility Humanities
NB. Mobility Humanities offers the possibility of publishing articles online-first during 2027.
Submission Guidelines: https://journal-mobilityhumanities.com/guidelines/manuscript-submission
Submission Portal: Abstract and final paper must be emailed to Adam Borch, Jason Finch, and Frederik Van Dam prior to the submission at the Mobility Humanities portal (https://mc03.manuscriptcentral.com/mobilityhumanities)