CFP 04.12.2016

REG/AC Journal, issue: Non-Textual Utopias

Eingabeschluss : 15.01.2017

Julia Ramírez Blanco, Universitat de Barcelona

REG | AC
JOURNAL OF GLOBAL STUDIES AND CONTEMPORARY ART, Vol. 4 (2016)

Open call for participation in the thematic issue:
NON-TEXTUAL UTOPIAS

Editor: Julia Ramírez Blanco
Universitat de Barcelona

Critical Cartography of Art and Visuality in the Global Part III R+D Project (I+D+I HAR 2016-75100-P). Art Globalization Interculturality R+D Project (AGI/ART: 2014SGR 1050)
PI: Dr. Anna María Guasch

The Journal of Global Studies and Contemporary Art is an indexed journal and an open access online publication, which aims to analyse visuality, contemporary artistic practices and cultural conflicts through a global perspective. REG | AC is associated with the research group Art Globalization Interculturality (AGI) of the Art History Department in the University of Barcelona. In the context of the 500 anniversary of Thomas More´s Utopia, the fourth issue of REG | AC will be dedicated to NON-TEXTUAL UTOPIAS.

There is a long tradition of texts which address the subject of utopia through the literary genre which was initiated by Thomas More in 1516. However, for some time (at least since Karl Mannheim) utopian studies have included many other expressions of the social imagination, encompassing all forms of proposing profound social change, whose radical otherness becomes inconceivable or unrealisable from the ideological prejudices of the time in question. From that point of view, utopia can be seen more as a method than as a specific form (Ruth Levitas). For his part, Lyman Tower Sargent has spoken of the three faces of utopia: utopian literature, social theory, and utopian practice.

With his theorisation of the “principle of hope”, Ernst Bloch had already highlighted the role of art as a sphere of the creation of utopias. If the paintings of arcadias and paradises and the maps of ideal cities are an obvious manner of addressing the question, the matter becomes more complicated after the eighteenth century, when art starts to conceive of itself as an agent of social change, situated between the axes of representation and praxis.

Within the framework of the 500th anniversary of Thomas More’s Utopia, REG | AC journal dedicates a monographic edition to NON-TEXTUAL UTOPIAS, seeking to reflect on utopias that are not based on the written text. In this respect, our interest starts out from a reflection on artistic practices and the expression of the utopian within contemporary visual culture. However, understanding the symbolic as an expanded field that merges with the performative and the spatial, we also welcome contributions that consider the utopian dimensions of political and communitarian practices. Despite centring ourselves on a temporal framework of the period since the fall of the Berlin Wall, we are also interested in studies that approach the context of the twentieth century and the end of the nineteenth century. We seek texts, images, or artistic projects that deal with subjects such as:

- Utopia in art and architecture
- Utopian imagination based on the visual
- Iconographies of Utopia
- Art and communitarian practice
- Political imagination and utopia
- Contemporary communes
- Activism and utopia
- Non-Western utopias
- Filmic Utopias and science fiction
- Dimensions of possibility and impossibility within utopia
- The relationship between utopia and reality.

Author guidelines

REG/AC is an indexed journal, and thus the articles must be unpublished and written according APA citation guidelines (see: http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/REGAC/about/submissions). Articles will be evaluated through peer review by two anonymous referees. The journal will be distributed under a Creative Commons license: this will enable the work to be shared with third parties by previously providing their acknowledgement of authorship, its initial publication in this journal, and its conditions of license.

The length of the articles must be between 20,000 and 40,000 characters (3000-6000 words), in addition to images if the author wishes to include them (in this case, the author will be responsible for asking permission to publish them, following the author guidelines about "Use of images": http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/REGAC/about/submissions#authorGuideline).

Call instructions

To participate in the call, please send an email to info.regacgmail.com with the subject "REGAC UTOPIAS". Attached should be an abstract of your proposal in two documents (WORD and PDF) including: 1) Title, 2) A 1500 characters Abstract (250 words), 3) Keywords, 4) A brief CV of the author, specifying educational background, academic and professional activity, publications, and contact details. Considering the bilingual nature of REG|AC Journal, proposals are accepted both in English and Spanish.

The call for abstracts submission is open from December 1 to January 15 2017, both included. The Editorial Committee will conduct the evaluation and selection of articles, and authors will be notified of acceptance for the publication within 15 days from the abstract deadline. The reception period for the acceptance of selected articles will be open between January 15 and April 15, 2017.

Quellennachweis:
CFP: REG/AC Journal, issue: Non-Textual Utopias. In: ArtHist.net, 04.12.2016. Letzter Zugriff 19.03.2024. <https://arthist.net/archive/14315>.

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