Call for papers: “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – A Companion”

Invited are fresh, cross-disciplinary perspectives on “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and its afterlives to explore literary, historical, and interdisciplinary approaches.

Abstracts of 200-300 words can be submitted using the submission form by 15 May 2025: https://forms.gle/XUsmPfBsXju2XpcR9
Completed pieces (around 3000 words) should be submitted in the first quarter/half of 2026.
Any question about the publication should be directed to [email protected], cc’ing the editors Franziska Kohlt ([email protected]) and Justine Houyaux ([email protected]). If you struggle with this deadline, you are encouraged to contact the editors as it may be possible to work around your schedule.

“This volume aims to offer a cross-disciplinary re-exploration and re-appreciation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) to capture the most recent, and most recently diversified approaches in literary and affiliated fields of study. It is designed as a complementary volume to ALICE: Through the Looking-Glass, A Companion (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2024). More info on the series: https://www.peterlang.com/series/gffc

Similarly to the previous endeavour, this volume will adopt a multi-pronged approach, combining approaches from literary theory, literary history and interdisciplinary humanities studies, such as environmental and medical humanities to historicist readings of Alice , with cognate approaches in fields pertinent to Alice ’s author, such as medical history, theology, logic and mathematics, including theatre studies.

The resulting book thus aims to be an exploration that allows us to see the different facets of the author, and how these come to play in Wonderland , and its manifold afterlives . It encourages authors to think internationally and intersectionally, to include approaches that challenge canonical readings of the text. As such, it particularly invites creative re-thinkings of Wonderland , as well as professional and/or practice-based reflections on completed or ongoing projects, such as curating Wonderland in museums, media settings, or education.

As a counterpart tot its sister volume on “Through the Looking-Glass”, any potential contributions to the present ‘companion’ should focus primarily on “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, and/or its afterlives. Authors are specifically encouraged to address the conflation of “Alice’s Adventures” and “Wonderland” – as ‘AAIW’ meaning ‘Alice in Wonderland’ (rather than its sequel “Through the Looking-Glass” or other works by Lewis Carroll).

Suggested topics and approaches might include, but are certainly not limited to:

Literary approaches

• Wonderland and its Literary Histories – Reflections on the shifting histories of the critical approaches applied in interpreting Wonderland – especially as separate from the works of Carroll, and the impact this had on the work’s understanding, and situatedness in literary studies and its sub-fields.
• Alice’s Adventures Under-Ground – New understandings that might be facilitated by re-considerations of Wonderland ’s manuscript.
  Wonderland and its protagonists – From the Cheshire Cat to the iconic Hatter and Tea-Party, this book invites explorations of individual scenes and characters and their iconic nature in the immediate reception of Alice and its afterlife.
• Wonderland and its poetry – Poetry in Victorian education, musical and childhood culture; parodies and re-writings of well-known poems, and their trans-/re-creations in other cultures and languages.
• Wonderland as/not as children’s literature – Engagements with assessments of Wonderland ’s uniqueness in this setting, shifting target audiences in translation, illustration, annotated editions and other transformative approaches of the text.
• Wonderland ’s Intertextualities – Examinations of literary interactions of Wonderland with the work of other contemporary authors, for instance Charles Dickens, Charles Kingsley, Margaret Gatty, Phillip Henry Gosse.

Historical approaches

• Wonderland and Pedagogic Cultures and Histories – Wonderland’s relationship with Victorian education, Lewis Carroll’s own understanding of Alice as education, the theme of education, and educational verse in Wonderland, as well as uses of the text in pedagogical settings from the Victorian age onwards, particularly with attention to its use in the context of the British Empire.
• Logic and Linguistics – Comparative readings of Carroll’s work on logic, especially for children, such as Game of Logic and Wonderland; the significance of language, sense and nonsense in Wonderland .
• Theology and Religion – Fresh perspectives on Wonderland in the context of Religion, in children’s education, religious literature for children, Carroll’s own shifting religious views and their significance for his works.
• Mathematics, Science, Medicine, and Environment – Dimensions of Wonderland with regard to Carroll’s preoccupation with Mathematics and Logic, in the context of contemporary psychology, and recent ecocritical approaches to Victorian literature.
• Music and Theatre Studies – Alice as a product of, and/or in correspondence with contemporary cultures of theatre and music.
  Sir John Tenniel and his work – New perspectives on Tenniel’s illustrations of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and their legacy.

Afterlives

• Myths of Wonderland – From erroneous and misattributed quotations online, to “that” Queen Victoria episode, the ever-present “Carroll myth”, or the genre of fictionalised imaginings of the relationship between Alice and Carroll, this volume seeks critically rigorous engagements with their impact on the public’s understanding of Alice over the past century-and-a-half.
• Art & History of Photography – Wonderland in fine arts, Surrealism, pictorial representations, Alice and Victorian photography.
• “Works of the Alice type” and “Alice in ___-land” type – Explorations of pastiches of Wonderland in the many forms they have taken.
• Politics and Caricature – Uses and recycling of Wonderland images, text, and symbols in politics, caricature and the press.
• Alice abroad – From contemporary translations, re-illustration, to specific adaptations and afterlives in specific national and cultural settings, Alice in the former British Empire and internationally with an emphasis on rare or unique approaches to the text.
  Alice and Digital Wonderlands Games – Game books, theme parks, video games, and online fandom as shaping new Wonderlands.
• Popular Culture – Fresh and recent explorations of Wonderland’s enormous afterlife in any other form of ‘popular culture’, including music, fashion, film, etc.
• Alice’s further adventures in Education – Origins and afterlives of Alice in and as educational literature (for instance in language learning, and adaptation/ translation), teaching editions, etc.
• Alice and Language – The post-publication evolution of “Alice in Wonderland,” “down the rabbit role” as a figures of speech.
• Social Science & Cultural Studies – Wonderland as sociological agent, as both high culture (Wonderland and nation-building, in Tourism), and as counter-cultural, protest cultures or subcultures (from Woodstock, Brexit-critical movements, Punk and Goth sub-cultures).

…and any other, and especially interdisciplinary explorations of the intersections of any of these fields.

Authors agree to refrain from using generative AI technologies in the writing process of their chapter. Should they use said generative AI technologies in their work for any other purpose (illustrations, composition of graphs and tables, etc.) they agree to disclose it by adding a statement at the end of their manuscript.