Proposed Formats: 

• Stories about your research (750-1500 words)
• Auto-ethnographic stories (750-1500 words)
• Comic panels/Chapbooks (3-10 pages), comic zine example, chapbook example
• Speculative fiction pieces (750-2000 words)
• Interviews (10-30 minutes)
• Original art works (300 DPI scans as PDFs, JPEGs, or PNGs)
• Podcast episodes (10-30 minutes), podcast episode example
• Original music compositions, songs, or vocals

Editorial Timeline

We are accepting abstract submissions until January 11th, 2027. The abstracts should be no less than 150 words, and no more than 500 words.

You will be notified of your selection the week of January 18th, 2027.

When the Editorial Board met to discuss this year’s theme, we talked about the different modes of survival our communities, institutions, and we as individuals have been facing. Together, we grappled with the continued onslaught of attacks on higher education and immigrant communities,  unaffordability, and multiple violences.  With this in mind, we acknowledge the feelings of fear and anger. At the same time, we want to provide a space for contributors to share knowledge and experiences that extend beyond narratives of struggle. This issue embraces the value of joy as a practice that is cultivated in our everyday lives and research.

Through cultivating joy, we celebrate our histories, the communities we nurture, the knowledge we create, and the possibilities we imagine. Moving beyond survival does not mean denying or minimizing the challenges we or our communities face, but rather recognizing that our lives and contributions cannot and should not be defined by these challenges alone.  Beyond survival also invites us to consider how we translate our experiences, knowledge, and commitments into action. Through research, service, storytelling, activism and civic participation, we build relationships that help shape the communities and institutions around us.

We invite contributors to explore joy in all its forms: as a practice, as celebration, as connection, as resistance and/or as discovery. Contributions do not need to begin with hardship or culminate in overcoming adversity. We welcome stories that celebrate the ordinary, embrace complexity, are still resolving, and imagine what becomes possible when we make space for more than survival.

Possible Areas of Exploration

We invite submissions that engage with, but are not limited to, the following questions and areas of exploration:

• What possibilities can we create when we imagine futures beyond the conditions we are trying to survive?
• How can scientific knowledge and research help us create hopeful futures?
• What does it mean to build community, scholarship, or rituals around shared joy?
• What brings you joy?
• How can joy be a form of resistance?

Submit now!