[aaus-list] FW: Second CFP: "The Unbearable Charm of Frailty. Philosophizing in/on Eastern Europe" (A Special Issue of Angelaki)

Wed Aug 27 17:03:32 EDT 2008

Dear Colleagues,
FYI (please see below).

Best,
Vitaly Chernetsky

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Dr. Vitaly Chernetsky
Assistant Professor
Dept. of German, Russian & East Asian Languages
Miami University
Oxford, OH 45056
tel. (513) 529-2515
fax (513) 529-2296
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________________________________________
From: H-Net Discussion Network on Postsocialist Studies [H-SOYUZ at H-NET.MSU.EDU] On Behalf Of Jennifer Dickinson [Jennifer.Dickinson at UVM.EDU]
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2008 4:44 PM
To: H-SOYUZ at H-NET.MSU.EDU
Subject: Second CFP: "The Unbearable Charm of Frailty. Philosophizing in/on Eastern Europe" (A Special Issue of Angelaki)

From: Cristina Bradatan <abradatan at hotmail.com>

(Please circulate widely & apologies for cross-postings!)

Second Call for Papers: "The Unbearable Charm of Frailty.
Philosophizing in/on Eastern Europe."

A Special Issue of  "ANGELAKI - The Journal of the Theoretical Humanities"

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/routledge/0969725x.html

Guest Editor: Costica Bradatan (The Honors College, Texas Tech University)

ANGELAKI hereby invites contributions on the topic of "Philosophizing
in/on Eastern Europe."

This special issue is scheduled for late 2009.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Over the last several years European Union has welcomed a number of
new member countries, most of which used to belong to the "Eastern
bloc." While, thanks to the influence of mass-media, tourism,
immigration, etc., Western Europe has come to acquire some general
geographic knowledge about these countries, relatively little is known
about what happens there in terms of production of knowledge and
cultural artifacts, in terms of intellectual debates and marketplace
of ideas. Although all of them are now part of the same "European
family," there is comparatively little knowledge in the countries of
the Western Europe about the cultural physiognomy of the East-European
newcomers.

The intellectual traffic between East and West within Europe seems to
be most often one-way traffic: it is as if ideas and intelligence can
only move eastwards, as though from East westwards almost nothing
(intellectually valid) is to be expected or desired. As such, the face
of the "new Europe" that the West most often sees is that of "le
plombier polonais."

The originality of thinkers such as Slavoj Žižek, Julia Kristeva,
Tzvetan Todorov, Jan Patočka, Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran or Leszek
Kołakowski, who have at different times made a significant
contribution to the shaping of the Western intellectual discourse, is
somehow taken for granted, and the character of the world they have
come from is passed over in silence. It is as though these people come
from nowhere - out of nothing. No significant attention is being paid
to their complex backgrounds, to the specificity of  their cultural
origins, to the unique blend of intellectual challenges and ethical
concerns that shaped their thinking, strengthened their personalities
and, in the end, made them who they are.

The special issue we are proposing addresses precisely this situation
in an attempt to bridge this gap of intellectual communication between
Eastern and Western Europe. Its plan is to map out the complex
intellectual landscape, the major intellectual debates and their
historical origins, as well as the current marketplace of
philosophical ideas in the countries of the Eastern Europe. This issue
aims at offering insights into the recent (or not so recent) history
of "the East-European mind" and its many facets, as well as into what
takes place philosophically right now in these places. It also seeks
to point to the specific contributions that East-European thinkers
might have to the shaping of a new, more comprehensive European
intellectual project.

More importantly, this special issue will pay special attention to
what connects these countries, giving them as it does a certain
"family resemblance." One important thing that these East-European
newcomers to the EU have in common - despite their many cultural,
linguistic, political and social differences - is the fact that all of
them shared, not long ago, the same historical failure: the failure of
the Communist project of Soviet inspiration. Whether you are in Prague
or Budapest, Riga or Bucharest, Sofia or Warsaw, you cannot help
noticing the traces of this major historical event: they are
everywhere, in the public discourse as well as in the private
conversations, in the ways people articulate their thoughts, in the
language itself. For people living in Eastern Europe simple words such
as "freedom," "human rights," "Communism," "capitalism," "left" and
"right," "poverty" and "inequality" mean something different from what
they do for someone who has been living in Wes!
  tern Europe. Much of what happens intellectually and philosophically
in these places is deeply marked by the haunting memory of this
historical failure of grand proportions, with its accompanying sense
of immense collective suffering, frustration and bitterness.

That being said, it might be precisely this failure, frustration and
bitterness, that place the East-Europeans - somehow paradoxically - in
a philosophically interesting and potentially creative position. It is
exactly the point that Václav Havel made in a speech in 1990. For him,
the failed Soviet system left behind "a legacy of countless dead, an
infinite spectrum of human suffering, profound economic decline, and
above all enormous human humiliation. [.] At the same time, however
unintentionally, . it has given us something positive: a special
capacity to look, from time to time, somewhat further than someone who
has not undergone this bitter experience. A person who cannot move and
live a normal life because he is pinned under a boulder has more time
to think about his hopes than someone who is not trapped in this way.
[.] We too can offer something to you: our experience and the
knowledge that has come from it."

The philosophizing that takes place in Eastern Europe is highly
relevant today not only because it has gained some privileged access
to the topics of historical failure and frailty, collective suffering
and trauma, but also because it comes to bear a special relationship
with the notions of hope and political renewal, ethical openness and
the reinvention of the human.

We invite submissions dealing with the history and the current state
of philosophy and the philosophically minded disciplines in the
countries of the Eastern Europe, some aspects of which have been
pointed to above. Interdisciplinary approaches (combining, for
example, philosophy, critical theory and intellectual history) are
particularly encouraged.

Here are only some of the possible topics:

- (Philosophical) texts in/and their (cultural) contexts

- Lost in translation

- The traffic of philosophical ideas between Eastern & Western Europe

- Centrality and marginality in the European philosophical culture/discourse

- Canon(s) and canonization in the European philosophical culture

- Specifically East-European philosophical topics

- Making philosophical sense of (disastrous) historical experiences

- The (quite) bearable lightness of being East-European

- (Eastern) Europe as a laboratory of ideas

- Genealogies, contaminations & disseminations of ideas

- Philosophy and politics in Eastern Europe (before and after the
collapse of Communism)

- Philosophy & civil society in Eastern Europe

- The tragic (East-European) fate of some (Western) philosophical ideas

- The European project, philosophically speaking

- "Le plombier polonais," philosophically speaking

Please note that - in the spirit of ANGELAKI, a journal of
"theoretical humanities" - we use throughout the term "philosophy" in
a broad (Continental and interdisciplinary) sense.

Geographically, for the sake of convenience, this issue attempts to
cover philosophical developments in countries that used to belong to
the "Eastern bloc" and are now part of the European Union (Czech
Republic, Slovenia, Poland, the Baltic countries, Romania, etc.) or
will join the EU in a foreseeable future (Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia,
etc.). Needless to say, as always, these are just approximations.

SUBMISSIONS GUIDELINES:

Deadline for submissions: May 1, 2009

Length: 5000-7000 words

Authors should keep in mind that they are writing for an academic, but
non-specialist (and largely Western) readership. Therefore, references
to specifically East-European developments, institutions, figures,
etc. should be further clarified in end-notes as appropriate.

All submissions should be in English. Notwithstanding the fact that
some authors use this language as their second language, it is their
responsibility to make sure that their submissions are written in
publishable English.

Apart from essays, we also invite proposals for a small number of book
reviews - on the theme of the issue - and translations of (short)
philosophical texts by major East-European philosophers. Interested
authors should approach the Guest Editor with a short proposal
offering a brief description of the book/translation in question &
explaining their relevance for this special issue of ANGELAKI.
However, the Guest Editor's initial approval of the book
review/translation proposals should not be taken as a guarantee that
their book reviews/translations will be accepted for inclusion in the
special issue.

All materials submitted to ANGELAKI undergo peer-review. Manuscripts
and Notes, typed double-spaced, should be submitted to the Guest
Editor as e-mail attachments, using Microsoft Word. The author's full
address should be supplied as a footnote to the title page.
Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the MLA Citation
Style: http://www.mla.org/

You can submit your contributions to:
bradatan at hotmail.com<mailto:bradatan at hotmail.com<mailto:bradatan at hotmail.com>
(with "For the Angelaki issue" in the subject line). Please allow at
least 4-6 months for the review process and editorial decisions.
Receipt of materials will be confirmed by email in a matter of days.

Unless otherwise stated in this Call for Papers, the Instructions for
Authors on the journal's webpage are adopted for this issue:

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/journal.asp?issn=0969-725x&linktype=44

We look forward to your submissions!

Sincerely,

Costica Bradatan

Guest Editor - ANGELAKI

Assistant Professor of Honors - Texas Tech University

http://www.webpages.ttu.edu/cbradata