[Commlist] Call for Abstracts: "Thomas Project. A border journal for utopian thoughts"

*Call for Abstracts 30th June: "Thomas Project. A border journal for 
utopian thoughts"*

*Next issue: UTOPIA AS A FORM OF LIFE*

http://www.thomasproject.net/call-ii-utopia-as-form-of-life-lutopia-come-forma-di-vita-a-utopia-como-forma-de-vida/ 
<http://www.thomasproject.net/call-ii-utopia-as-form-of-life-lutopia-come-forma-di-vita-a-utopia-como-forma-de-vida/> 
*
*

Francesco Biagi, Gianfranco Ferraro, Manuel Masini (eds.)

How can we think of utopia today? Is there any location now for its 
“spirit”? How can we reflect on the traditions of utopian thought by 
starting with the question about an “elsewhere” placed by our present? 
And how can we reflect on the meaning of a /kairos/, of a /here and now 
which is other/, of a permanent “alternative history” redrawing the time 
starting from a waiting perspective?

Can utopia – through its various motifs but above all through its call 
to a world which is an alternative to a life which is otherwise – 
present a gap in relation to the forms of life of the present time?

The proposal of this issue is to continue the research developed by 
authors over the last few years – such as Miguel Abensour, Luciano 
Canfora and Pierre Macherey – which is to think through a different 
point of view within the modern utopian tradition. Also, via authors 
such as Pierre Hadot, Michel Foucault and Emil Cioran, we are attempting 
to reflect on some of possible routes which oblige us to think again on 
modern utopias from the age of humanism in More, Campanella and Bacon to 
those of Fourier, Blanqui and Proudhon, and to the ones represented by 
the forms of life from the revolutionaries of the nineteenth and 
twentieth century. What is also at stake is the tradition of 
“conversion” or the archaeology of “other” forms of living. Specific 
attention will be given to the relation between utopia and prophecy. 
This relation can be considered from a contemporary point of view – 
through the conflicted and fertile connection between these two concepts 
(starting from the study of the respective semantic fields to their 
theoretical projection in W. Benjamin, G. Lukács, A. da Silva, E. 
Buonaiuti, K. Löwith, P. Ricoeur, E. Cioran), and with the attempt of 
rewriting utopian and prophetic thought.

As explained by Ernst Bloch, a “spirit of utopia” always continues to 
exist where the horizons of history and existence appear as more static. 
In this sense, the fall of the great ideologies do not necessarily 
correspond (which is also due to the distinctions made by Mannheim) to 
the demise of that spirit. Here we can perhaps identify one of the main 
elements of utopia which is that it can be embodied in forms of 
meditation about an “elsewhere”. This helps us to think more about the 
“present” place – as it was conceived in 1516 when More wrote about the 
fantastic journey of the Portuguese sailor Hythlodaeus, alongside with 
the much more real Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci. This can be 
incorporated into practices of literature and art. More’s /Utopia/ seems 
to be implying that an alternative form of society can be realized in 
the present vision of the “elsewhere”, and of the constant becoming of a 
present looking to an unpredictable future. Through their connections 
with the ancient traditions, the Platonic /kallipoleis/ or the “other 
worlds” of the religious experiences, utopia and modern chiliasm or 
messianism continue to “cause problems” or put in question the forms of 
every power and truth.

Moreover, at the threshold of modernity, utopia and apocalyptic 
prophecies meet. For example, in Joachimism (and also in the long 
tradition that is connected to it) and Thomas Müntzer, the 
ancient/ beyond/ is taken to an /elsewhere/ that has to be realized on 
the earth, and this idea will emerge many times in the following centuries.

Thus, what is the relation, connection and difference between modern 
utopia and modern prophecy?

The positive notion of utopia, proposed for instance by Abensour and 
Macherey, is compared to the one that collapsed and was rejected at the 
end of the last century as the harmful remains of violent and 
authoritarian ages. In addition to being archaic, utopia was considered 
an accessory of the totalitarianism of the “short 20th century” (to use 
Hobsbawm’s expression). Abensour attempts to restore its value to the 
utopian imagination which is connected to radical, critical thought. He 
does this by following an interpretation of Marx’s thought that does not 
underestimate nor overlook utopian socialism; rather it acknowledges its 
influence and link by changing the images of dream into a political 
theory of historical action. In this sense, heretical Marxist communism 
does not reject utopia; it connects it with action and social 
transformation (also through a prophetic ground that never disappeared 
in Marx’s thought – which was pointed out in Eduardo Sanguineti’s 
reading of some of Marx’s key-texts). Also, in different ways than 
Abensour, Macherey reaffirms that utopia, which now becomes “concrete”, 
is not simply contemplative, but rather it is an incitement to 
subversive action. In fact, it is opposed to the dystopic regime of 
modernity, and it imagines an alternative – which occurred in the Paris 
Commune and all the historical and literary breaches whose utopian 
thought was somehow (as well as the lines of immanent prophetic thought) 
a driving force. In this sense, utopia and prophecy together are a call 
that does not go away but rather represents themselves in the shadows of 
the present.

What is at the stake is the challenge to respond again to the call of 
utopia, to understand how its spirit, although it does not expect the 
realization of forms, and be able to transform philosophy, politics, 
art, and the spaces where we live – such in as our cities and our 
bodies. Are we perhaps – as Abensour asked – something more than 
political, utopian animals? And how, as women and men of the 21st 
century, /do/ we and /can/ we live as utopian animals? How can we 
actually express it?

Our issue has an interdisciplinary vocation: political thought and 
philosophy are the background starting at the point in which it is 
possible to suggest theological, sociological and anthropological 
considerations in theories of art, literature, cinema, urbanism, and 
utopian and landscape architecture. The editors hope to stimulate and 
open up a point of view aimed to deconstruct a perspective that is often 
merely Eurocentric and Western.

*To Submit the Abstract:*

The abstract (in english, or portuguese, or italian, or french, or 
spanish) must be no longer than 600 words and has to include a clear 
summary of the structure and main arguments of the proposed article. The 
abstract must also stress its originality and relevance for the volume, 
and include five references from the secondary bibliography. Please 
include in your email the name of the author(s), your possible 
institutional membership and address. The abstract must be sent in doc 
and pdf format to the following email address:

(_redazionethomasproject /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(redazionethomasproject /at/ gmail.com)>_

*Timetable and Deadlines:*

30th June: submission of the abstract

15th July: response to the authors

15th September: submission of the article

15th September – 15th October: peer-review process

30th October: final submission of the article

30th October – 30th November: editorial review

December: issue.



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