Call for Papers: A Special Section of "Survive and Thrive" on Plato's Nightmare by Steven B. Katz

 Call for Papers:

A Special Section of "Survive and Thrive" on Plato's Nightmare by Steven B. Katz

978-1-64317-402-0 (paperback, $49.95); 978-1-64317-403-7 (PDF, $29.95); 978-1-64317-404-4 (EPUB, $29.95) © 2026 by Parlor Press, with illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index of poetry. 756 pages.

The recent publication of Plato's Nightmare by Steven B. Katz creates a unique opportunity for scholars, poets, and artists to come together at the site where disciplines, traditions, and visions intersect.  Plato's Nightmare uses poetry and prose to explore the human desire to escape the material body and world.  Katz explores ancient Greek sophism and Hebrew mysticism, Christian spiritualism, scientific revolutions, transcendentalism, and cybernetics -- never with an eye to simplify or reduce;  always with a vision for what each brings to the work.  In so doing, Katz gives readers and writers diverse entry points into his project.

With that in mind, Survive and Thrive, a Journal of the Medical Humanities and Narrative as Medicine, invites diverse voices (scholars, poets, artists) to contribute to a special section of a forthcoming issue celebrating, interrogating, expanding, and transforming Katz's work in Plato's Nightmare.  

Survive and Thrive welcomes individuals working in the rhetorical tradition, in religious studies (especially in the Christian and Jewish traditions that fuel Katz's work), in Classics and in Philosophy, in studies in science and technology, and in body studies.  As an online journal, we welcome submissions in diverse media (from poetry and prose to photography, painting, animation, video, and more).  Our defining criterion for inclusion will be measured against the contribution the submission makes to the conversation and the project begun in Katz's Plato's Nightmare.

For this special issue, recognizing Katz's longstanding and formative role in the journal, we also welcome works that conect Katz's current project with his formative work in rhetoric, technical communication, poetry, and narrative medicine.  

For consideration in this collection, submit your work through the submission portal for Survive and Thrive, found here: https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/survive_thrive/ no later than July 1, 2026.