Special Issue of Atlantic Studies: Global Currents and Workshop – Call for Articles

Title: “Seeds of Empire, Roots of Change: Botany and the Atlantic World”
Location: Saint Louis University Campus, Madrid (March 11–12, 2027)
Organizers: Atlantic Studies: Global Currents, The Center for Iberian Historical Studies, and Saint Louis University, Madrid.

The editors of Atlantic Studies: Global Currents invite article submissions for a Special Issue and preceding Workshop that focus on the intersection of botany and the broader historical and cultural legacies through which plants, knowledge, and practices were moved and transformed within and beyond the Atlantic World. The inter- and transdisciplinary Special Issue and Workshop seek to explore how botanical knowledge, human activity, and natural processes have shaped the movement, dispersal (or rejection), and establishment of and narrative engagement with plant species across continents via global oceanic water ways.

Accordingly, we welcome contributions that examine the historical and cultural dynamics of plant movement across oceans from a range of perspectives, including, but not limited to:

Exploration and Exchange: The role of colonial exploration, scientific expeditions, missionary activity, and trade routes in the transnational and transoceanic transfer of plants, including food crops, medicinal herbs, ornamental species, and industrial raw materials; the spread of specific cash or food crops; bioprospecting.
Botanical Networks and Knowledge: Indigenous botanical knowledge; botanical knowledge and practices of enslaved and formerly enslaved persons; the plantationocene; the history of botanical classification; the role of correspondence networks in sharing and utilizing knowledge about plant distribution; the intersections of botanical, pharmacological, and medical knowledge.
Ecological and Environmental Consequences: The impact of introduced species, including their role as invasive species and their effects on local ecosystems; the long-term environmental transformations resulting from human-mediated plant movement – thinking beyond paradigms such as the Columbian Exchange.
Narratives of botanical travel and exchange: historical and contemporary accounts of plant mobility; plant encounters in fictional and non-fictional texts; representations of plants in literature and film; gendered botany research and representation.

All accepted authors will attend a two-day workshop in Madrid (March 11–12, 2027) and commit to having their papers published in the corresponding Special Issue (pending successful peer review) which will be published in 2028. On March 11, participants will discuss pre-circulated article drafts after an opening plenary lecture. March 12 will consist of cultural events in Madrid followed by a plenary roundtable.

Meals and coffee breaks will be provided by the organizers. Participants will have a special rate at a hotel near the Workshop venue.

Key dates: