[Commlist] Call for submissions: interdisciplinary special issue on ‘Difficulty’

*Call for submissions: interdisciplinary special issue on ‘Difficulty’*

*Deadline: 30^th June 2022*

Following preliminary discussions with the editors of a prominent 
journal of critical theory, we seek theoretically orientated submissions 
from a range of disciplines for a full proposal on the following topic, 
with a view to publication in early 2024:

*‘Difficulty’*

This interdisciplinary special issue will explore how conceptions of 
difficulty determine the transmission and reception of knowledge across 
a range of contemporary domains — for example arts and culture, 
education, politics, or digital media —, as well as associated questions 
of access, equality, and participation.

Contemporary analyses of difficulty often stress its social and 
relational constructedness, thereby challenging its perceived inherence 
to topics, objects, or approaches. In a discussion of literary texts, 
for example, Diepeveen frames difficulty as a ‘reading process [that] 
manifests itself socially’ and highlights difficulty’s intimate 
connection to cultural elitism and social and educational hierarchies 
(2003). Constructivist appraisals of difficulty foreground questions 
about access, equality, and participation: who determines which 
materials, subjects, or debates are appropriate for whom, and according 
to which pedagogic, developmental, political, cultural, or ethical 
principles? Why are some subjects cast as too difficult for some readers 
or audiences? Conversely, which assumptions, attitudes, or investments 
underpin conceptions of ease or accessibility? A point of departure, 
here, might be the work of Jacques Rancière ([1987] 1991), which takes 
to task the explanatory authority of the teacher. His work would 
constitute one starting point for thinking about how difficulty, in a 
range of contexts, might be reframed from a fundamental idea of radical 
equality.

As well as eliciting reflection on the hierarchies and inequalities 
engendered by difficulty — either as property or construction —, we also 
encourage thinking around the productive forms of disturbance that 
difficulty can engender, its associated risks (e.g., boredom, 
disorientation, anxiety, failure, disengagement), as well as its 
(trans)formative capacities. What value might reconceptualisations of 
difficulty hold for the contemporary era? To what extent do conceptions 
of difficulty map on to shifting forms of knowledge consumption and 
transmission? How might they relate, for example, to analyses of 
(in)attention in the digital age (Citton [2014] 2017)? In the domain of 
education, theorists such as Gert Biesta have critiqued emphases on 
/facilitating /learning that serve to neutralise experiences of 
difficulty, challenge, or frustration. Relatedly, recent valorisations 
of ‘unlearning’ as an educational ethos can be seen to return difficulty 
and attendant forms of experience to the centre of the educational 
encounter (Seery and Dunne 2016).

Are difficulty’s disturbances to be feared, neutralised, or embraced? 
Which approaches — be they aesthetic, educational, technological, 
institutional, political, relational, or otherwise — might take account 
of the dislocation or disturbance that difficulty can provoke? How might 
conceptions of difficulty be used to theorise contemporary intersections 
between culture, ethics, and politics? For example, how might 
institutional and disciplinary approaches to decolonization be informed 
by thinking around difficulty? In relation to contemporary ethical and 
political imperatives, should difficulty be mediated or attenuated, or 
are its attendant effects – discomfort, unease, anxiety — not precisely 
to be encouraged? How in that case, might difficulty be granted its full 
ethical and political force?

We encourage, then, contributors to theorise difficulty as it relates to 
the unfamiliar, disorientating, or affectively or ethically charged; to 
propose transversal conceptualisations of difficulty in the present 
moment; to explore the cultivation of an ‘experimentalist’ mindset in 
the face of difficulty (Bowie [1978] 2008); to challenge its associated 
hierarchies of access and engagement. We are especially interested in 
theoretically orientated readings of difficulty pertaining to:

  * education/pedagogy
  * arts/culture/museums/heritage/curation/programming
  * digital/technological cultures
  * cultural competency/intercultural exchange/culture shock
  * literature/theory/textual practice

250-word proposals, accompanied by brief biographical details, should be 
emailed to Dr Richard Mason (Queen Mary University London) at 
(richard.mason /at/ qmul.ac.uk) <mailto:(richard.mason /at/ qmul.ac.uk)> by *30^th 
June* *2022*. It is anticipated that accepted submissions will be 6000 
words in length and will be due in December 2022.

_References _

Bowie, Malcolm ([1978] 2008), /Mallarmé and the Art of Being Difficult 
/(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Citton, Yves ([2014] 2017), /The Ecology of Attention/, trans. by 
Barnaby Norman//(Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press).

Diepeveen, Leonard (2003), /The Difficulties of Modernism/ (New York: 
Routledge).

Rancière, Jacques ([1987] 1991), /The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five 
Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation/, trans. by Kristin Ross (Stanford: 
Stanford University Press).

Seery, Aidan and Éammon Dunne (2016), /The Pedagogics of Unlearning 
/(Punctum Books).

---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------