In the last four years, we have collectively witnessed an increasing number of uprisings, growing social movements, and calls for solidarity. Following the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, for example, we saw calls for solidarity in the uprisings against police violence and the systemic, pervasive white supremacy that has structured our social institutions. As COVID-19 eviction moratoriums lifted in 2021, we saw solidarity between tenants and unhoused people in movements for housing rights. In May 2022, the Supreme Court’s reversal of the Roe v. Wade decision dealt a blow to reproductive freedom that shocked many and exposed the ways white feminist movements had failed—and perhaps are still failing—to answer calls for solidarity from BIPOC femme-led organizations in the decades prior. Summer 2022 also began a nationwide onslaught of anti-trans legislation, attacking everything from gender-affirming care to drag performances.
The backlash to these movements has included violence from both police and alt-right vigilantes, increasing legislation aimed at silencing protest and freedom of speech, and attacks on tenure, DEI initiatives, and academic freedom at universities. These attacks on academia, of course, disproportionately target the humanities, as we saw at West Virginia University with the elimination of the world languages, literatures, and linguistics department. More recently, attacks on campus freedom of speech resulted in militarized police responses and mass arrests at student protests against university complicity in the ongoing attacks on Gaza. In the face of so many violent and dire circumstances, calls for solidarity are common, urgent—and often difficult to define or put into action.
For this special spring issue of JMMLA, we are delving into the concept of solidarity. Solidarity requires that we share stories, seek connections, and engage in dialogue, but what does it do to alter the material conditions that structure our lives? The social fabric of our society favors individualism, and we may have not yet grasped—even as we reel from the effects of a Global Pandemic—that our survival, liberation, and futures are bound up together, and that the hard work of solidarity, coalition, mutual support and aid, and undoing systemic oppressions is the only way forward for any of us. There is power in calls for solidarity, but do these calls do more than produce a fleeting alliance? Is solidarity simply an earnest acknowledgement of harm, or is it a sufficient impetus to promote a passionate and principled fight? Shows of solidarity often bolster hope and raise awareness, but do they also result in lasting coalitions, cultural shifts in attitude, or genuine systemic improvement?
For this issue, we solicit work that explores understandings and practices of solidarity among individuals, groups, and/or academic disciplines—particularly when solidarity requires working across various lines of difference. We encourage examinations of actions of solidarity, dialogic encounters, or ways in which recognition of interdependent connections serves to strengthen, embolden, and encourage transformative effects. We likewise invite essays that question whether acts of solidarity are an effective means toward social change, as well as essays that complicate what “effective” might mean.
Possible topics include work that:
● describes solidarities among artists and artistic collectives within or across media types
● describes historical or current expressions of solidarity in activist or organizing contexts, including activism within the university or with academic/community collaborations
● investigates particular understandings of solidarity as a concept and/or set of practices
● explores connections across class, race, indigeneity, gender, sexuality, and ability resulting in actions designed to enact or create solidarity
● weighs the benefits or impact of private vs public practices of solidarity
● depicts solidarity in literature or media, whether as triumph or failure
● considers labor solidarity with regard to unions and collective opposition to tools that, like generative AI, may make unauthorized use of intellectual property
● explores solidarity as a concept within the university at-large
● examines solidarity as a moral imperative
● shares an approach to teaching solidarity through texts or other creative pedagogy
● describes research approaches and methodologies that practice solidarity, especially in community-based or community-engaged research
● investigates dialogue and discursive acts as steps toward solidarity
Articles should be between 7,000 and 10,000 words (including notes) and follow MLA style guidelines. For more information, please see: mmla or to the guest editors of this issue, Kelly Kidder (kelly.kidder) and Brynn Fitzsimmons (bfitzsimmons). Prior to submission, please review the JMMLA Style Guide and JMMLA Manuscript Manager Instructions.
Submission Deadline: January 15th, 2025.
Brynn Fitzsimmons, PhD
They/Them/Theirs
Assistant Professor of English
Composition, Rhetoric, and English Studies Program (CRES)
The University of Alabama
Office: English Building 127
Email: bfitzsimmons