[Commlist] CFP: Imagining the unseen: 20 pictures of debt’s empire, then and now

Call for proposals

Imagining the unseen: 20 pictures of debt’s empire, then and now

Edited by Clea Bourne 
<https://www.gold.ac.uk/media-communications/staff/bourne/>, Paul 
Gilbert <http://www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/275733>, Max Haiven 
<https://maxhaiven.com/>and Johnna Montgomerie 
<https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/dr-johnna-montgomerie>

  *

    We are seeking pitches (200w) for short chaptersthat tell a story of
    the way today’s forms of debt, finance and/or moneyare entangled
    with the histories of race, empire and/or colonialism

  *

    Chapters of roughly2,500 wordswill focus on a single demonstrative
    image(eg. artwork, map, artifact, advertisement) as a means to
    illuminate these entanglements

  *

    The collection will be geared towards a general audienceand oriented
    towards use in classrooms. Talks are underway with several presses
    to ensure the best fit.


      To submit a pitch, please use this short online form:
      https://forms.gle/zQkCjPfWd65sS4mJ8


      Please submit pitches by July 19, 2019
      Drafts of selected chapters due by September 2019


For more information, contact: Max Haiven - (mhaiven /at/ lakeheadu.ca) 
<mailto:(mhaiven /at/ lakeheadu.ca)>

The proposed edited collection, imagined as both a thoughtful 
introduction and a meaningful contribution to ongoing conversations, 
addresses the entanglements of debt, finance, empire race and 
colonialism through a series of short, accessible and image-driven 
essays. Made up of contributions by artists, activists, scholars, 
journalists and other thinkers, each chapter “unpacks” a significant and 
illuminating image: for instance, an artwork, a map, an advertisement, 
an artifact or a picture of a building.

This book project follows the success of a 2017 gathering at Goldsmiths 
(“Colonial Debts, Imperial Insolvencies, Extractive Nostalgias 
<http://www.perc.org.uk/project_posts/colonial-debts-extractive-nostalgias-imperial-insolvencies-reimagining-financialization/>”), 
a recent 2019 gathering at Sussex (“Finance Capital and the Ghosts of 
Empire <http://rival.lakeheadu.ca/ghostsofempire>”), and a 2018 special 
focus section of Discover Society 
<https://discoversociety.org/2018/09/04/focus-colonial-debts-imperial-insolvencies-extractive-nostalgias/>each 
of which brought together artists, activists and scholars. It is the 
companion project to the production of a special issue of a scholarly 
journal special issue <http://rival.lakeheadu.ca/ghostsofempire>.

The goal of this collection is to offer diverse readers a venue to think 
through the complex tangle of forces at work in the creation of the 
economy, historically and today. The collection will maintain a special 
focus on the way the legacies of empire, race and colonialism persist in 
the present: from the transatlantic slave trade to today’s racialized 
global working class, from the early days of settler colonialism to 
contemporary extractive industries, from direct colonial rule to our 
worldwide empire of debt. Equally, we envisage contributions which 
emphasize the traces that financial exploits deposit in wider social and 
cultural landscapes, from architectural forms to communications 
infrastructure.

Since the 2008 financial crisis plenty of accessible books on finance 
and the broader trend of financialization have appeared. There has also 
recently been a renewed attention to the economic legacies and 
present-day manifestations of the racial hierarchies of empire and 
colonialism. This will be among the first collections to bring these 
themes together.

Uniquely, this collection seeks to bring together not only scholarly 
experts but also artists, activists, journalists and others to offer a 
multifaceted approach. It is written for newcomers to this conversation, 
providing an entry point into debates about finance for those who might 
feel ‘uninitiated’, but doing so with rigour and nuance. It will 
mobilize images as a means to tell a complex and interwoven story about 
how our current financial and (post)colonial moment came about.


  Overview for contributors

Towards an exploration of these themes, the editors invite contributions 
along the following dimensions

  *

    All chapters will open with an image, selected by the author. In the
    case of artists, this might be a single image of/from their work; in
    the case of academics and others this might be a particularly
    striking, demonstrative or iconic image related to their research.

  *

    The chapters are structured around explaining the image and its
    contexts and significance to a broad, thoughtful but diverse
    audience. We encourage authors to imagine first- or second-year
    undergraduate students. Don’t feel the need to develop a close
    reading of the image itself: we’re interested in how the image
    presents a jumping-off point for discussing the bigger issues at play.

  *

    Chapter should be about 2,500 words in length and might be guided by
    the following questions

      o

        What is this image and what are its origins? What does it 
represent?

      o

        How does this image or what it pictures help us think about the
        intersections of finance/financialization and the histories,
        legacies and presents of colonialism, imperialism and/or racism?

      o

        What are the stakes and the important dimensions of the problems
        the image reveals?

  *

    We encourage approaching these chapters as storytelling.

  *

    While we can offer some limited assistance, it is unfortunately the
    responsibility of authors to secure the reproduction rights to images.

  *

    We prefer authors keep citations to a minimum. While details of
    preferred citation style will be distributed later in the process,
    please include a short “further reading” section with some of the
    texts you found most illuminating.

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