[Bilimsel Haber] CFP: "Inventions of Activism, " Reconstruction 10.3: February 1, 2010.

[Gonul Pultar]

From: alexandra ganser [mailto:alexandraganser at hotmail.com]


Call For Papers
Reconstruction
Issue 10.3
Michael Benton, Alan Clinton, Wes Houp and Danny Mayer

Inventions of Activism

"Creative acts of social justice fulfill every function that can be
asked of a work of art.
They inspire us, make us think in new ways, and birth new beauty and
dignity in our world."
--Rebecca Alban Hofberger, "True Visions”

"Screw Hope; Let's Act"
--Walker Lane "Nope to Hope: False Capital and the Spectacle Triumphant"

This issue of _Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture_
solicits a variety of work which looks to activism as a broad array of
creative practices yet to be defined.  We seek not to revisit debates
between theory and practice, but to view activism as a form of
invention which may lead to new cultural formations.

What challenges do activists face as practicing utopians?  What more
or less local examples of activism can be looked to as models for
further practice?  How can activism as performance, as technology, as
art lead to the production of new political and social theory?  How is
activism the art of the possible?

We would like this issue itself to be a form of activism inasmuch as
it brings together a set of theorized practices in the form of case
studies from the present and the past, a community of minds in both
its contributors and subsequent readers.  We also encourage
contributors to look to problem areas that have not yet been addressed
or not addressed sufficiently, and to propose new models of cultural
intervention.

Some areas of particular interest expressed by editors should serve as
a starting point:

1.      Testimonials of individuals and/or groups that document the
structures of collective action and resistances (both external and
internal) to these movements.

2.      Activism as a form of social and political creativity.
Considerations of how theory can promote or become activism, or how
theories of political and social invention derive, post facto, from
such activities.

3.      The rhetoric of activism in its statements and endeavors.

4.      Narration and development of (potential) actions with respect
to labor (broadly defined).

5.       Activism as a form of education, as supplement to or
alternative for traditional educational theories.  Educating
activists.  Activating educators.  Theoretical and practical issues
within "the academy."

6.      Resistance to resistance: fatigue, Bruce Robbins' "sweatshop
sublime," institutional reprisals from the most oppressive (violence,
termination) to the most frustrating (hypocrisy and lip service from
those in power, mainstream media misinformation, public indifference),
mythologies (of the American dream, of freedom of choice, of the free
market, etc.)

7.      Reform from within the institution vs. revolution from without.

8.      What is (non)violence and what roles do violence or
nonviolence play in activism?

9.      Issues of activism in different social and historical
contexts, what can we learn (from Obama's vision of service to the
most dangerous underground resistance movements)?

10.  Psychologies of activism.  For instance, do activists and/or
organizers of activism benefit more from an openness to depaysement
(the process by which the ethnographer/observer becomes altered and/or
mediated by the culture under investigation) or
dissociation/dispassion (the idea of "objective" or "critical"
distance from the subject under study as providing a "better" vantage
point).

11.  What are the benefits or disadvantages of “traditions” in
activism?   Marx notoriously stated that he was not a Marxist, with
that in mind, what kind of problems derive from the institution of
founders and followers in activism?  Even more fundamental, what is
the problem of what Eric Hobsbawm called the “inner conflict of
traditions,” the inevitable conflict between universal rules and
specific, ever-changing circumstances/situations.

12.  J.K. Gibson Graham asks in Postcapitalist Politics “If we want
other worlds and other economies, how do we make ourselves a condition
of possibility for their emergence (7)?”

 We hope that activists of all kinds will view this issue as a form of
potlatch that may lead to new practice and theory, new activist
communities.  While we encourage the use of anecdote as example and
extended narratives as models for inventing activism, we do not want
this issue to be primarily about smoking guns and personal beefs.   In
the light of the sensitive nature of this endeavor we will consider a
variety of approaches to publication---including anonymity and/or
"fictocritical" accounts which do not name names or present a
situation with altered details.



Please send completed papers and abstracts to the editors at
inventionsofactivism at gmail.com  no later than February 1, 2010.
Earlier submissions and queries are welcome as we may be able to
collaborate with authors in order to produce work that not only fits
with the intent of the issue but with the standards of Reconstruction.
  Also, we encourage you to forward this CFP to interested parties and
lists.



Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture (ISSN: 1547-4348) is
an innovative online cultural studies journal dedicated to fostering
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most important and influential work in contemporary interdisciplinary
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issue per year. Send open submissions (year round) to
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www.reconstruction.eserver.org

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