Established within the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race (CSER), this journal is a unique space for academic and creative work directly related to the intersection of several axes of identity—namely race, ethnicity, sex, class, and ability. Open to students both undergraduate and graduate, this journal rejects the rigid boundaries of traditional scholarship and welcomes the interdisciplinary creations of the larger Columbia/Barnard community. Our desire to anchor Ethnicity and Race scholarship—and the students who conduct it—as essential to the fabric of Columbia University.
Submissions are now open for Roots’ 2nd issue, themed “Borderlands.” Our submission window is open from 20 November 2024 to 20 January 2025, 11:59 p.m. EST.
We invite undergraduate/graduate students to think through the Borderlands with Roots. What happens to our bodies/minds/scholarship/language/etc. when bisected by a border? Drawing from the words of poet-scholar-activist Gloria Anzaldúa, we approach the Borderlands as “physically present wherever two or more cultures edge each other, where people of different races occupy the same territory, where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space between two individuals shrinks with intimacy.” To explore these overlaps, Roots is seeking academic and creative output of any and all disciplines (inter- and trans-disciplinary modes), with an emphasis on the study of ethnicity & race.
“To survive the Borderlands
you must live sin fronteras [without borders]
Be a crossroads.”
– Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza
Keywords: mutation; transgression; malleability; interdisciplinary; “a new consciousness” (Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera, 80); cross-genre, trans-genre, transcending names, labels, categories; existing in the -ish; “hyphenated American;” gender; magical realism; nation-state; borders; sovereignty; transnational; trans*; identity; indigeneity; form and content; the page as a border; the personal and/as the political.
Visual Art includes photography, drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, video (website only), etc. Maximum Submission: 5 respective works.
Academic Writing includes essays, interviews, ethnographies, etc. Submission Length: 1,000-4,000 words total. Includes multiple submissions.
Creative Writing includes poetry, prose, personal essays, fiction, plays, etc. Submission Length: 1-5 poems or 1,000-4,000 words total. Includes multiple submissions.
Again, submissions are due January 20, 2025. We encourage you to submit finished works as soon as possible. Applicants will be notified of their submission status via email. Submissions will be reviewed blindly by journal editors and selected for publication in either our physical journal and website (in full or excerpted), or website only.
Please direct submission questions to cserjournal@gmail.com.
