Call For Chapter Contributions: Our Song: Critical Essays on Intertextuality and Taylor Swift

Edited by: Exquisite Williams (Transylvania University)

This edited collection, under contract with Vernon Press, invites chapter proposals  that explore the intertextual landscape surrounding one of the world’s last remaining monocultures: Taylor Swift. Across five sections, this volume addresses how Taylor Swift’s work engages with mythology, memory, place, and spectacle, and how these elements construct meaning.  Rather than treating Taylor Swift as an isolated cultural phenomenon, contributors are invited to trace the many networks of texts, images, performances, and cultural narratives in dialogue with her work. We seek contributions that align with the themes of the volume and offer original approaches to Swift’s music, visual media and public persona. Early-career scholars are especially encouraged to submit.

Topic and themes

Authors may address, from whatever angle they see fit, the following topics:

•      Mythological Motifs and Narrative: Explorations of Taylor Swift’s engagement with mythology throughout her discography

•      Place and Cultural Landscapes: How does Swift situate her music within time and place? How does she use this connection to evoke emotion and cultural resonance?

•      Memory, Grief, and Legacy: How do themes of memory, grief, and legacy shape personal and collective interpretations of Swift’s work?

•      Visual Intertextuality: How do Swift’s music videos, performances and visual aesthetics engage with broader cultural texts? How do these visual conversations contribute to meaning-making across media?

•      Critical engagement with the Spectacle of the Show Girl: Taylor Swift as a person has become a site of textual analysis, what critical conversations emerge from the tension between Swift’s public persona, her private one and the parasocial relationship others project on her? How can celebrity itself function as text?

Submission process

Please submit a 300-word abstract and a brief biographical statement October 15th 2026, to the editor Exquisite Williams: ewilliams@transy.edu

Accepted contributors will be invited to submit a 5,000-6,000-word chapter (including notes and references) by January 13th, 2027.

Important timeline

• Proposal Submission Deadline: October 15th, 2026

• Notification of Acceptance: November 6th, 2026

• Full Chapter Submission (5,000-6,000 words): January 13th, 2026

• Peer Review Feedback: March 15th, 2027

• Revised Chapter Submission: May 1st, 2027

• Anticipated Publication: Fall 2027 or Winter 2027