Themes

Consistent with the McDowell Center's mission and UTA's Strategic Plan 2020, the following themes, broadly defined, have been chosen for the focus of the journal:

Language, Literature, and Humanities: The study of humanistic ideas met a backlash at the turn of 21^st Century. Some still advocate for the importance of a humanities education in our contemporary times. We certainly do, and we also believe that a humanistic education and critical languages should be coordinated with empirical findings of research in the human sciences toward the betterment of our society. We welcome articles that offer an appreciation and analysis of modes of cultural expression, critical languages, and any number of cultural topics, showing their relevance to the human sciences within an interpretive framework of language, literature and other humanities disciplines.

Politics and Culture: The dynamics of politics and culture not only constantly redefine our identity but also influence our relationship with others. We welcome articles that trace the root causes and dynamics of peace and conflict through historical, anthropological, linguistic, and sociological analyses of issues such as war, poverty, violence, civil liberties, and the quest for truth and justice, and which propose alternative models of human value to achieve humanity's better interests.

Science and Technology: New technologies both enable and constrain human individuality and creativity and have made an enormous impact on human cultures and languages. We are interested in articles that explore the social, political, historical, and linguistic dimensions of technology in pre-modern and modern societies, and their relationship with human individuality and creativity as well as human hopes and values.

Environment and Sustainability: Continuing to harvest the earth's energies and resources in order to sustain our growing populations is a real challenge to our species. We welcome articles that examine the histories of industrialization and urbanization, agriculture and energy, and explain the consequences of human-environment interaction.

Capitalism and Society: Some would argue that capitalism contains inherent contradictions which create problems in society which amount to at least as much as the benefits it brings. We are interested in articles that can respond critically to our socio-economic problems such as poverty, homelessness, the housing crisis, food deserts, marginalized populations, etc.

Healthcare and Medicine: Our society is tackling the problems of obesity and substance abuse on a daily basis, and care for the sick or disabled, as well as the aging population has become a daunting challenge. We are interested in articles that examine these and other perennial issues such as addiction, epidemics, new treatments, and approaches to the health care debate.

Finance and Business: We live more than ever before in an interconnected world, and there are varied implications for the global economy. We welcome articles that examine the intricacies of North-South relations, interdependence, international organizations, global finance, and emerging alternatives such as the digital marketplace, the gig economy, blockchain currencies, etc.

Race, Class, and Gender: Race, class, and gender issues affect working class people in America and beyond. We are interested in articles that cover issues of domestic labor, migrant workers, informal economies, factory labor, women's participation in trade unions, wage inequalities, family leave policies, and sexual harassment. 

Public Policy: We are interested in articles that can really propose a new solution to the emerging public issues by examining social policy, economic policy, and policies related to science, technology, and the environment.