Call for contributions

Proposals are invited for contributions to the new book series on Languages at War, which is published by Palgrave Macmillan and edited by Hilary Footitt (University of Reading, UK) and Michael Kelly (University of Southampton, UK).

The series is intended to bring together books which deal with the role of languages in situations of conflict, including war, civil war, occupation, peace-keeping, peace-enforcement and humanitarian action in crisis zones.

The editors are aware that in recent years, scholars from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds have begun working on issues of languages and conflict. They may draw on approaches from history, politics, international relations, cultural studies, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, translation studies and intercultural communication. This series seeks to bring together works which share a common point of focus in languages and conflict, but take different interdisciplinary approaches to understanding it.

The series aims to examine languages at war in three major contexts:
Languages and the military
-         Fighting together: language issues in international coalitions
-         Occupying and changing regimes
-         Intelligence and security
-         Training and preparation
Meeting the other in war and peace-making
-         Encounters between combatants
-         Civilians and the military
-         Displaced populations and refugees
-         Prisoners of War
-         Crisis management and support
Interpreting/translating in war
-         Role of interpreters in conflict mediation
-         Being an interpreter in war
-         Languages of interpretation
-         Professional and organisational issues

The series is concerned to explore specific conflict situations, across a wide range of times and places, and specific language-related roles and activities. It encourages the use of contemporary written and oral material, so that the voices of those involved in the wars, both military and civilian, are clearly heard within the texts.

The first volumes in the series will be:
Languages at War: Policies and Practices of Language Contacts in Conflict (edited by Hilary Footitt and Michael Kelly)
"War Talk": foreign languages and the British war effort in Europe, 1940-46 (Hilary Footitt and Simona Tobia)
Languages and the Military: Alliances, Occupation and Peace Building (edited by Hilary Footitt and Michael Kelly)

Colleagues who may wish to make proposals for inclusion in the series are invited to contact Hilary Footitt (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) or Michael Kelly (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), enclosing a brief outline for preliminary consideration, before completing a full publisher's proposal. Full proposals will be subject to detailed external review.