[ecrea] CFP: Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies, "Under Fire" section

Critical Arts: south-north cultural and media studies

CALL for UNDER FIRE ARTICLES



The post-millennium world has seen a rapid escalation of violent 
conflicts in the Middle East, West, Central and some areas of Southern 
Africa, and ongoing civil wars and human rights abuses in a variety of 
other regions across the world. As a means to engage these developments, 
Critical Arts instituted a new Section, “Under Fire”. This is in keeping 
with its interpretation of cultural studies as a form of praxis, of 
experience, and of strategic intervention, in which individuals find 
themselves caught up in broader process over which they may have little 
or no control. The aim of this section is to invite short (anything up 
to 2000 words) theorised autobiographies, authoethnographies, and 
dramatic narratives of what it is like living under fire, of the 
relevance of cultural studies in such circumstances, and how it could be 
deployed to challenge such conditions. The original Call emanated from a 
number of unsolicited submissions we had been receiving from colleagues 
in Palestine and Zimbabwe, letters from friends in Israel, and 
marginalised groups in South Africa, and from academics whose research 
and work is pilloried by hostile authorities. The exigencies of being 
under fire make it hard to find the discursive space in which 
participants can catch enough breath to speak the truths of their own 
participation:



· When does a culture of resistance lose focus, becoming a culture of 
violence as an end in itself?

· At what point can one recognize when legitimate defence against 
violence has suddenly become indistinguishable from the Warsaw Ghetto?

· How can we turn war-talk into justice-talk, without provoking 
war-mongers to renewed efforts?

· In a world with a global view of even the most local eruption of 
violence, how can those under fire on opposite sides of the street, the 
valley, the river, the sand dune find enough space to escape the 
solidarities of occupation, of resistance, and develop a language of 
restitution, restoration, Reformation, in the face of corporate and 
state reaction?

· Closer to our sites of research, when does academic managerialism and 
bureaucratisation of research become offensive, anti-humanist and 
self-destructive? The academic enterprise is under fire itself, as are 
many employed within it.



“Under Fire” hopes to become such a space, and we do not expect to 
define what will make submissions acceptable or not. The object is for 
those who have had enough, to speak in the ways they believe those 
across the camp or the river might attend to them. The “Under Fire” 
submissions should reflect not just the pressures of a personal 
involvement within a context of oppression, occupation, or resistance; 
it should carry a clear indication of just how this involvement tests 
the cultural studies tradition. In this “test” the writers’ experience 
must draw not only on the cultural studies method of examining texts and 
contexts, but should also use the writer’s own context as the critical 
touchstone for pushing the cultural studies envelope.



Submission Guidelines:

Submissions should be made online via ScholarOne Manuscripts at 
http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rcrc (in cases where internet 
connectivity is not conducive to a ScholarOne submission, we will still 
accept manuscripts submitted via email to the Critical Arts office. Send 
to Kieran Tavener-Smith at (criticalarts /at/ ukzn.ac.za) and/or 
editor-in-chief, Keyan Tomaselli, at (tomasell /at/ ukzn.ac.za)). Submissions 
should be original works not simultaneously submitted elsewhere, if up 
to 2000 words in length including any references. Referencing should be 
done according to the Chicago manual of style (see attachment).

Indexes listing Critical Arts:

Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) [ISI ranked]; Arts and Humanities 
Citation Index; Alternative Press Index; ARTBibliographies Modern; 
British Humanities Index; Film Literature Index; Humanities 
International Index; Index to South African Periodicals; International 
Bibliography of Social Sciences; International Bibliography of Theatre & 
Dance; Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts; M L A International 
Bibliography; Periodicals Index Online; R I L M Abstracts of Music 
Literature

Critical Arts URLs:

Author Services:

http://journalauthors.tandf.co.uk/

Critical Arts Home Page:

http://ccms.ukzn.ac.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=151&Itemid=87

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/authors/rcrcauth.asp

eJournals Archive (1980-1992):

http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/africanjournals/



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