Trans-Scripts—the interdisciplinary journal based at the University of California, Irvine—invites graduate students to submit their work for publication. The theme of our sixth volume is “Design in Humanistic Inquiry.”

300-WORD ABSTRACTS ARE DUE JANUARY 15, 2015

Scholars in the humanities and social sciences have urged us to consider the politics and processes involved in fashioning and making sense of our material and immaterial world. Humanities scholars have explored virtual worlds and digital identity, disability and universal design, writing as design, and the history, ethics, and philosophy of design. Meanwhile, social scientists have examined notions of expertise, the cultural meaning of objects, designed interactions, digital worlds, the temporality of design, and the heterogeneous ways we theorize and interface with things. In asking after the ways that we produce and imagine the tangible and intangible, we aim to explore not only how things are produced, but also how they become imbued with meaning. We also seek to reflect on how our understandings of self and other might be produced through our interactions with the material world. In this issue, therefore, we will explore diverse perspectives on design in the humanities and social sciences. In thinking about design, broadly defined, we will ruminate on the various processes, practices, social relations, politics, and temporalities that collectively contribute to the production of things, selves, and ideologies.

We invite scholars to submit papers with innovative approaches to theorizing, historicizing, and engaging this topic, with the aim of producing new ways of conceptualizing design in humanistic inquiry.

We welcome contributions from all disciplines, and we are especially interested in the work of scholars in interdisciplinary programs. Possible papers include, but are not limited to topics on:

• Disability and inclusive/universal design
• User centered design/user experience
• Dematerialization
• The body
• History of design
• Virtual worlds
• Digital identity
• Social identity construction
• Writing as design
• Ethics of design
• Social inequality
• Design and intentionality in narrative
• Aesthetics
• Philosophy of design
• Political ideology of design
• Designing future things
• Artisanship/craftsmanship
• Materiality and immateriality
• The enactment of design
• Creating creative spaces
• Crafting selves

Trans-Scripts welcomes all submissions that engage topics related to “Design in Humanistic Inquiry.” They may, but certainly need not, address the examples listed above. As we believe that scholarship from a variety of approaches can help inform contemporary understandings, submissions need not conform to any disciplinary, methodological, or temporal mode. They need only be original, well researched, and properly cited. English language contributions from all universities in all countries will be considered.

_Faculty Contributors
Selected graduate student work will appear alongside contributions from renowned faculty members, including editorial pieces and scholarly articles. Past contributors have included Étienne Balibar, Hortense Spillers, Lee Edelman, Roderick Ferguson, and Temple Grandin.

_Submission Guidelines and Review Process:
The deadline for abstract (300 words) submission is January 8, 2016.
All submissions should be written in English. The total word count for the full article will be between 5,000 and 8,000 words, including footnotes. Explanatory footnotes should be kept to a minimum. All pieces should be submitted as a Word document attached in an email to transscriptsjournal@gmail.com. The email should include your name, institution, program/department, and an email address at which you can be contacted.

Submissions should employ the MLA style of citation. For in text citations see the following style sheet from the University of Georgia. For bibliographic citations see the style sheet compiled by the Macon State College Library. For further help with MLA style, please refer to the MLA Handbook for Research Writers, 7th Edition, 2009, or view the Purdue MLA style guide online at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/.

Each piece will be reviewed by two members of the editorial collective. Pieces accepted for publication will then be returned to the author with editorial suggestions. When a successful agreement has been reached between authors and editors about the content of a piece, it will be published in the journal. The editors will do all they can to give authors as much time as possible to make changes to their submissions after review.

_Comments and General Inquiries
Please direct all general inquiries about the journal or any comments on published pieces to our 2016 volume’s Editor-in-Chief, Heather Thomas, at thomash (at) uci (dot) edu.