[ecrea] Call from Academic Quarter

  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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