Vol. 69 | Call For Submissions
Spectrum Literary Journal is currently open for submissions. For volume 69, we will be navigating the artistry in consumption.
Spectrum is an international journal of art and literature that is annually published by UCSB’s College of Creative Studies. The publication was founded in 1957, marking it as one of the oldest literary journals in the UC system. Through a broad range of genres and subject-matters, Spectrum aims to showcase both the scope and depth of human experience.
The theme of volume 69 is consumption. We encourage you to consider how artists can make meaningful engagements with the internal worlds we embody and the external worlds that surround us. In medicine, we associate the word “consumption” with illness and decay. Alternatively, what we consciously refrain from consuming in material goods can be taken as an act of protest. Through gastronomical rhetoric, consumption has the capacity to capture the nuances of cultural heritage and gender. Take, for example, the following excerpt from Kim Thuy’s novel, Man, translated by Sheila Fischerman:
“Five hours’ baking at a low temperature forced the bread to play a protective role for the fruit as the bananas slowly delivered up the sugar in their flesh. Anyone lucky enough to taste that cake freshly baked could see, when cutting it, the crimson of the bananas embarrassed at being caught in the act.”
We are curious about how your personal engagement with consumption extends beyond simple transactions. While consumption can signify decomposition, further inspection allows us to understand that the word is also constructed from the Latin roots for “altogether” and “to take up.” With this in mind, the editors of volume 69 encourage you to reconstruct and complicate what it means to consume or be consumed. We invite you to partake and share your poetry, prose, and artwork that is in conversation with the theme of consumption for vol. 69.
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Please click here to familiarize yourself with our submission guidelines and to submit your work. We look forward to hearing from you.
Caitlyn Lee, Editor-in-Chief
Vol. 69