Dear Colleagues,

QUEER. adj. [of this word the original is not known: correspondent supposes a queer man to be one has a quære to his name in a list.] Odd; strange; original; particular. He never went to bed until two in the morning, because he would not be a queer fellow; and was every now and then knocked down by a constable, to signalize his vivacity. Spect.

QUEE’rly. Adv. [from queer] Particularly; oddly.

QUEE’RNESS. n.f [from queer] Oddness; particularity.[1]

In his Dictionary of the English Language (1755), Samuel Johnson defines ‘queer’ as ‘Odd; strange; original; particular’. The literary example used to illustrate Johnson’s definition of ‘queerness’ comes from Addison’s and Steele’s The Spectator, and curiously involves the story of ‘a fellow’ who would not go to ‘bed until two in the morning’ so as to avoid being labelled ‘a queer’. This ‘non-queer’ man also encounters the constabulary only to be ‘knocked down’. The de-contextualised narrative components within Johnson’s chosen literary example tantalizingly enfold the potential intimacy or sexuality of the ‘bed’ with the rough enforcement of the ‘constable’ and the gendered performance of ‘vivacity’. Reading, perhaps, anachronistically, there is much in Johnson’s description to tease a resonance with twenty-first century queer experiences of intimacy, sex, criminalisation, and performance.

To a queer-studies reader of the anglophone eighteenth-century, Johnson’s attempt to define ‘queer’ is also, ironically, a very ‘un-queer’ exercise. Of course, the gulf between our own shifting and unstable understanding of queer and Johnson’s entry is deep and intellectually treacherous. And, yet, as scholars have persuasively shown over the past few decades, the long eighteenth century is an incredibly queer period.

This Special Issue invites articles that explore the queer eighteenth century, with a particular emphasis placed on the following areas:

• Trans and non-binary eighteenth-century lives and cultures.
• (Dis)ability and eighteenth-century queerness.
• Queerness and Indigenous lives and cultures in the eighteenth century.
• Material culture and queerness.
• Queerness and 21^st-century representations of the eighteenth century.
• Queer historiography and the eighteenth century.
• Race and queerness in eighteenth-century literature and culture.
• Queer domesticities, places, and landmarks.
• Queer communities and networks.

[1] Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language: In Which The Words are deduced from their Originals, And Illustrated in their Different Significations By Examples from the best Writers. To Which Are Prefixed, A History of the Language, And An English Grammar. By Samuel Johnson, A.M. In Two Volumes. Vol. II. (London: W. Strahan, For J. and P. Knapton; T. and T. Longman; C. Hitch and L. Hawes; A. Millar; and R. and J. Dodsley., 1755)  

Dr. Declan Kavanagh
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Humanities is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• queerness
• trans
• non-binary
• Indigenous
• material culture
• history
• race
• domesticity
• literary networks