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This is nothing to do with me, but I thought it might interest members of the
forum...
Best Steve
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SPACE & CULTURE
- the journal
The hallmark of the most exciting developments in contemporary social
theory and research is that issues of space and culture are placed to
the fore. The distinction of _Space and Culture_ is its grounding in
everyday life: the habitual and the mundane practices that make up the
material of contemporary culture. _Space and Culture_ is a
cross-disciplinary journal that fosters the publication of reflections
on a wide range of socio-spatial arenas such as the home,
architecture, urbanism and geopolitics. We encourage the application
of contemporary theoretical debates in cultural studies, discourse
analysis, and post-colonialism to research on sexuality, migrant and
diasporic identities, virtual identities and virtual citizenship.
_Space and Culture_ is unique in having the explicit mission of
bringing cutting- edge theory to the contexts and sites of social
change.
We are not seeking applications of theory but rather work on the
frontiers of theoretical development which nonetheless retains an
organic link to everyday life and its positionality within its culture
of origin.
Editors: R. Shields (Lancaster/Carleton)
J. van Loon (Cardiff University of Wales/Tilburg)
I. Roderick
Call for Papers on Key Themes
Issue 1:2 - Apocalypse: The Collapse of Time and Space into a Void of
'The End'. Issue 1:3 - Habitable Spaces: How Are the Cruellest Spaces
Made Inhabitable? Issue 2:1 - Webs, Networks & Organizational Space
Issue 2:2 - Anti-Methods: Expressive Forms of Researching and Writing
Culture.
APOCALYPSE: an important and unexplored cultural condition of social
spatialisation. Tying in with the current debates about New
Medievalism (Brownlee et al. 1991), an issue is planned consisting of
original contributions to thinking the Apocalypse, beyond its rather
restricted conceptions as an element of the history of ideas and
religious- philosophical discourse. The Apocalypse is a space of
conceptualisations that emerge from information, communication,
bio-genetic and nuclear technologies and, as such, it is a principle
factor inherent in the very logic of modernisation. Phenomena such as
ecological disasters, epidemics, urban disorders and guerrilla warfare
must be read alongside these technological transformations. Of central
importance in these conceptualisations is the way in which 'the
Apocalypse' signifies a mutual collapse of time and space into a void
indicating 'the end' ( for example dystopia). This returns to cultural
practices of everyday life in a multitude of forms: moral panics,
crowd-anxieties, political apathy, hyper-hedonistic consumption,
public angst, lethargic cocooning, cybernetic insomnia and
domesticated terror. Suggested topics will include disorganized
spaces: violence, crime, riots, urban terrorism, ecological disasters
as well as more `everyday' (dis)orders such as fires, accidents,
power-cuts and epidemics. (REVISED Deadline for submissions: April 30,
1997)
HABITABLE SPACES: How are the cruelest spaces made inhabitable? Ioan
Davies' _Writers in Prison_ and _Assemblage_ - Violence and Space
Special Issue are good starts but only a beginning. This issue
reverses the current trend for regulation and fixity so as to focus on
movement and flow (to be treated in the premier issue). That the
social sciences have proved so adept at describing social spaces as
disciplinary should be telling. As the social scientist unveils and
reveals the coercive apparatus and the docility it demands, this
doubled gaze risks becoming a reinvigorated scopophilia. What the
social scientist cannot see is the under-class of practices that do
not contribute to the systematicity she or he seeks to describe. Even
the cruelest of spaces, we argue, be it the prison, classroom, office
partition, home, and so on, must be made inhabitable (REVISED Deadline
for submissions: August 31, 1997).
WEBS, NETWORKS & ORGANIZATIONAL SPACE. There has been a paradigmatic
shift in thinking about ways in which socio-cultural formations are
being organized. From structures of positions, the major metaphor in
thinking about organizations has moved to a perception of action-flows
and actor- networks (Cziarniawska-Joerges 1992). What are the
implications of this shift for the ways in which we understand the
complexity of the everyday in the context of "organizational
practices"? Of course, the work of Latour on Actor Network Theory
could be of great importance here, but we might want to explore other
venues in thinking about what could be called "organizational space".
What is it? How does it relate to "flow" as a new paradigm? In what
ways could organizational space be related to the problematic of
boundary-formations (inside, outside, beyond). Is "the" organization a
useful category for socio-cultural analyses or are there better ways
to conceptualize this "middle" domain of "structuration"? For this
issue we ideally seek contributions from people who have some
engagement with analyses of the complexity of the everyday within
"organizational settings" - which may be loosely defined as ways in
which more or less mediated interaction-flows between "members" and
other entities (technologies, resources, energies) are connected, and
regulated. Organizational space might be conceived of as a "tame zone"
in which "bodies" and their extensions ("media") are coordinated.
Organizing practices then become choreographies through which such
pleasures of coordination are being expressed. Of course, this remains
a rather optimistic account that certainly asks to be counterpoised
with the tragedies that organizational spaces also bring to fruition.
(Deadline for submissions: December 31, 1997).
ANTI-METHODS: Expressive Forms of Researching and Writing Culture. In
_The Gay Science_, Nietzsche observes that "So far, everything that
has given colour to existence still lacks a history; or, where could
one find a history of love, of avarice, of envy, of conscience, of
piety, or of cruelty?" These are the aspects of social life that have
been rendered minor, trivial and irrelevant. However, it is precisely
such anomalous trifles that are to be found in the rustle of everyday
life. Machiavelli, Kant and Bakhtin all identified a schism between
the official and the popular as emblematic of modern life. Orderly and
officious life is only possible through the obfuscation and submersion
of the vagaries and vulgarities of sociability. The positivist
enterprise, we argue, is born with this more general program of social
rationalization. In occluding the more discordant aspects of everyday
life, spaces such as the city, the home, etc. acquire an anatomy of
harmonious organs which process smoothly and efficiently the vital
flows of social life. Likewise, positivism can only filter out
unwanted residues in order to represent a distilled system in which a
certain orderliness and predicability is again proven. How complete,
though, is the transition from organic to mechanical forms of
solidarity? We argue that these subterranean knowledges and practices
are highly allusive and their 'disappearance' from rationalized spaces
signals not their demise but their resistance to quantification. It is
precisely the 'reappearance' of these residuals that interests us. If
these anti- knowledges are to be given expression then what new
procedures of investigation or anti-methods will be amenable to this
end? Accordingly, we invite reflexive contributions from those who are
engaged in researching and writing that which ordered society has put
to sleep. Describe for us your _gay science_ (Deadline for
submissions: December 31, 1997).
Double spaced submissions in Harvard format in three copies with short
abstract (100-150 words) and IBM diskette to the address below.
A complete submission guide can be requested by email or retreived
from our website (in RTF or Word for Windows 6 format).
http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/research/DDS/space.html
Space & Culture
Design, Space and Society Research Unit
Room A37
Cartmel College
University of Lancaster
Lancaster LA1 4YL U.K.
Fax: +44 (01524) 594256
Tel: +44 (01524) 594193
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Space and Culture - the journal
http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/research/DDS/space.html
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Space and Culture - the journal
http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/research/DDS/space.html
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