Archive for 2018

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[ecrea] Call from Academic Quarter

Wed May 02 15:46:04 GMT 2018




  Call for Walking

Guest editors

Dominic Rainsford, Aarhus University

Jens Kirk, Aalborg University

Jørgen Riber Christensen, Aalborg University

/Academic Quarter/presents a new call addressing the concept of Walking.

Rudolf Zallinger's famous illustration of the history of the human race, "The March of Progress", from F. Clarke Howell's /Early Man/ (1965) reproduces the birth and evolution of our species in the shape of fifteen naked male (!) beings sauntering from left to right.  Zallinger's image and its title more than imply that it is the ability to walk upright that is a central player in the evolution of humans. This assumption is also shared by evolutionary scientists, who agree that it is this ability to move around on two legs, which does not only make hominids distinct from mammals, but which also conditions our later split from anthropoid apes. The human body is a walking body. With this in mind, it seems ironic that there is a strong contradiction tied to the concept of walking right now. At least in the western world, where we in a matter of a very short time have stopped walking. Shank's pony, which has served us for innumerable years, is no longer our favourite means of transportation, when we need to go from A to B. Busses, cars, aeroplanes, bicycles etc. have supplanted our feet. On the other hand, at the same time there is a kind of renaissance of walking, for the able-bodied who are able to do so. Individually designed walking holidays designed in relation to e.g. the degree of difficulty, one's purse, age, gender, and sexual preference (walkingwomen.com) flourish far and wide. Pilgrimages (The Camino) have become so trendy that TV series have been produced about them. New pedestrian bridges (The Millennium Bridge, London) and pedestrian streets proliferate in large cities (Boulevard Saint Laurent, Montreal);while streams of refugees move on foot on our motorways, and so ethnicity, poverty, and persecution become thematised features of walking.

Amato (2004) and Solnit (2014) both offer a survey of walking. These two cultural histories cover e.g. the development of the pavement and the importance of walking for marketing. Liturgical processions, military parades and the high marching speed of Roman legions were part of the exercise of power. Mass demonstrations and the prohibitive response to them in urban planning helped shape policies. In a chapter " Women, Sex, and Public Space", Solnit gives an account of the gendered oppression of women with regard to moving around on foot. The historical period of the great migrations and the migrations and refugee crises of our time add geopolitical meaning and aspects of ethnicity, poverty, and persecution to walking. In the arts, wandering in nature was regarded as poesis by William Wordsworth, and Charles Dickens regarded night walking in London similarly.

This issue of /Academic Quarter/ is dedicated to articles about literature, art, film and media, computer games, tourism, migration, fashion, sport, experience design, gender, history etc., which so to speak have reinvented the use of our legs in relation to one's own and people's practice, and stage it as strolling, promenading, marching, flaneuring, sauntering, wandering, striding, idling about, ambling, loafing, and walking.


    References

Amato, Joseph A. 2004. /On Foot A History of Walking/. New York: New York University Press.

Howell, F. Clarke. 1965/1970. /Early Man/. London: Time-Life International.**

Solnit, Rebecca. 2014. /Wanderlust/ /A History of Walking/. London: Granta Publications.


    Schedule

The first step is to submit a brief abstract in English or Danish of about 150 words to be mailed to Liza Pank ((pank /at/ cgs.aau.dk) <file:///C:/Users/JørgenRiber/Desktop/(pank /at/ cgs.aau.dk)>) no later than June 15, 2018. The editors will then review the abstracts and notify the authors of their decisions soon after. Accepted articles – using the Chicago System Style Sheet (http://www.akademiskkvarter.hum.aau.dk/pdf/AK_word_template.docx) – should be e-mailed to Liza Pank ((pank /at/ cgs.aau.dk) <file:///C:/Users/JørgenRiber/Desktop/(pank /at/ cgs.aau.dk)>) no later than September 15, 2018. Articles will then be reviewed anonymously in a double, blind peer review process. The authors will receive their review by October 30. The articles should be around 15,000-25,000 keystrokes (3,000-3,500 words), and they can be written in English or in the Danish. Assuming that the articles are accepted by the peer reviewers and the editors, they should be revised, and the final version sent in by December 1, 2018. The issue is projected to be published in February 2019.

/Academic Quarter /is authorized by the Danish bibliometrical system, and the journal is subsidized by Danish Council for Independent Research Culture and Communication.

June 15. 2018 – Submission of abstract

September 15. 2018 – Submission of article

October 30. 2018 – Review sent to authors

December 1. 2018 – Submission of final version of article

February 2019 – Publication


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