CrossCurrents Special Issue: “Calligraphers and Spiritualities Crossing Cultures“
This special issue of CrossCurrents seeks to explore contemporary calligraphers and works of lettering arts that bridge spiritualities and aesthetics across cultures and languages. These conversations can traverse many avenues, as suggested by the sampling of potential topics below.
Contemporary calligraphy and lettering arts provide a rich venue for interplays of religions and cultures, as seen in the Calligraphies in Conversation annual exhibit which ran for several years in San Francisco, as well as in several ‘Abrahamic faiths’ calligraphy performances in the immediate years after 9/11. Contributions may take different forms: a scholarly essay analyzing a particular artwork, an interview with an artist, an essay by an artist about some of their recent work. Essays should seek to move beyond mere analysis of form and dig into the spiritual and/or religious ideas and practiced behind, within, and around artists and artworks. Overall, essays should ask how artworks model creative dialogues between religions, cultures, and aesthetic traditions, and how they might inspire readers and viewers to do the same.
Some ideas for papers:
• Works bridging East Asian aesthetics and Jewish/Christian religions;
• Calligraphy Performances and collaborations across traditions, including ritual objects;
• Western/Roman-alphabet calligraphers drawing on East Asian aesthetics and calligraphies;
• Calligraphers inhabiting different cultural spaces within parallel traditions;
• Open to more ideas!
First drafts of essays due by May 1, 2025. Length: 5000-8000 words. For a sense of the journal, check out the CrossCurrents page. Potential contributors should send a 150-word abstract by September 15, 2024, to issue editor Joanna Homrighausen (College of William & Mary) at [email protected].
