ABOUT THE ISSUE

Commons turns our attention to the fragile conditions of collective life.

It appears in the places where people meet. In those spaces, we depend on one another, inherit unfinished histories, and negotiate the terms of belonging. Across social, cultural, and spatial contexts, the commons is shaped by acts of care, by repeated use, by conflict, and by neglect.

For Issue 003, STRATUM Journal invites writing that considers how common worlds are made. Through essays, criticism, research, reflection, and cultural writing, we are interested in tracing the visible and invisible structures that allow something to be held between us, while asking what forms of labor such holding requires.

We are drawn to work that does not simply name what is shared, but asks what it takes to keep something open.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

We welcome writing that engages the theme of Commons with clarity, depth, and a strong sense of relation.

We are especially interested in submissions that consider:

• shared space, public life, and collective memory

• care, maintenance, and the labor of holding things in common

• access, exclusion, borders, and the politics of belonging

• unfinished histories, inherited structures, and common worlds in crisis

• artistic, cultural, social, spatial, or theoretical approaches to the commons

• contemporary conditions in which something is shared, contested, protected, or eroded

We welcome work that is intellectually grounded without becoming closed, and rigorous without losing contact with lived experience.

SUBMISSION TYPES

This issue-specific call is intended for writers and text-based contributors.

We welcome submissions such as:

• essays

• criticism

• reflective writing

• research-based writing

• cultural commentary

• hybrid or experimental text-based work

If your proposal is not primarily text-based, it may be better suited to another ELSEHERE program rather than this issue-specific STRATUM Journal call.

WHO CAN APPLY

This open call is open to writers, critics, researchers, artists, curators, and cultural practitioners whose work aligns with STRATUM Journal’s editorial scope.

You do not need to have published with STRATUM previously in order to submit.

We welcome contributors working across disciplines, geographies, and cultural contexts, especially those whose writing can hold artistic, social, and conceptual complexity with clarity and precision.

EDITORIAL POSITION

STRATUM Journal is ELSEHERE’s bilingual publication for art, culture, and the humanities.

We work through a selective editorial model. This is not a mass-submission platform, and we do not publish according to volume or speed. We are interested in work with strong editorial fit, conceptual clarity, and the capacity to remain meaningful over time.

Issue 003 is being shaped with close attention to form, thought, and the long afterlife of publication.

SELECTION MODEL

There is no fee to submit.

All submissions are reviewed individually through a curated editorial process.

Only selected contributors will be contacted for publication.

If a submission is selected, our team will follow up with next steps, editorial process, and publication timeline.

This approach allows us to work with greater editorial care and to build a stronger, more durable publication context for the writing we choose to publish.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Please submit materials that help us understand the work clearly and in relation to the issue theme.

• a completed draft or strong partial draft

• a short abstract or project description

• a short contributor bio

• relevant links or previous writing samples, if available

Please send only the materials that are most relevant. Clarity, force, and thoughtfulness matter more than volume.

WHY PUBLISH WITH STRATUM JOURNAL

Editorial fit over mass exposure
We publish selectively, with close attention to editorial alignment, quality of thought, and long-term resonance.

A durable public-facing record
Publication in STRATUM Journal is designed to remain citable, visible, and meaningful beyond the moment of release.

A broader intellectual and cultural context
STRATUM Journal sits within ELSEHERE’s wider editorial and curatorial ecosystem, where publication is part of a larger field of dialogue and circulation.

Institutional and professional value
Published essays and critical texts can support portfolios, applications, academic contexts, and longer-term professional positioning.

We invite writing that does not simply describe the common, but stays with it.

Writing that asks how something is shared, by whom it is maintained, what histories it carries, and what kinds of care, pressure, conflict, or refusal shape its survival.

Issue 003 is an invitation to think from within the common, and to write from the unstable ground we already stand on together.