Hello everyone,
On behalf of myself and my co-managing editor, Megan J. Sheard, I am pleased to announce a call for papers for volume 3 of UCSB's react/review: a responsive journal for art and architecture. The theme for volume 3 is “Fields of Force: Navigating Power in Space, Place, and Landscape," and will explore how power manifests in different spaces, whether through visible, concealed, or transitory forms. These may include the material constitution of architecture and infrastructure, surveillance, or strategies of performance and practice which navigate, resist, or transform existing spaces. Please see our attached CFP for an extended description:

Call For Papers
react/review: a responsive journal for art & architecture
Volume 3: Fields of Force: Navigating Power in Space, Place, and Landscape Deadline: August 1st, 2022

How is power embedded in the spaces, places, and landscapes people move across and inhabit? What are the modes or strategies through which it operates? These might manifest in visible, concealed, or transitory forms, such as the material constitution of architecture and infrastructure, surveillance, or strategies of performance and practice which navigate, resist, or transform existing spaces. For example, Rebecca Ginsburg’s scholarship on “slave landscapes” in the U.S. examines how enslaved people developed a “geographic intelligence” of plantation landscapes, which allowed them to navigate gaps in surveillance and find sites of refuge, demonstrating the concealed potentials in environments of apparently-total constraint.

We are pleased to announce a call for submissions for the third volume of react/review, themed Fields of Force: Navigating Power in Space, Place, and Landscape. This idea has its etymology in Perennial Press’ force / fields, which poses the questions: “What are the force fields we hold up? What are the force field fields we fight against?” It also draws on diverse threads from interdisciplinary scholarship on theories of space, architecture, infrastructure, and affective environments. In the context of colonial landscapes, Denis Byrne describes how Aboriginal people in Australia refused the grid of property boundaries, jumping fences and taking shortcuts through paddocks to continue practices grounded in the sentience of the land—a very different conception of power to that enacted by the colonial map.2 Architecture also shapes the movement and occupation of particular spaces by different people at different times: in urban contexts, zoning, surveillance, legal restrictions, and material and symbolic strategies all shape "fields of force." People and organizations contend with such fields in their negotiations of city space, whether in compliant or resistant modes, in everyday practices that Michel de Certeau refers to as “tactics.”3 An example of an institution that navigates its own "field of force" is the museum, which relies on objects in its collection to establish identity and claims to space. Activists and organizations like the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act increasingly contest the global spatialities of museum networks and their authority over artifacts, drawing attention to the cultural significance of objects and their extraction from particular geographies.

We invite paper submissions that examine art, architecture, and other material methods for operating within spaces and their affective influences.

While we welcome all submissions, react/review prioritizes those by graduate students from any discipline at any stage of their MA or Ph.D. program, as well as postdoctoral fellows, and early career contingent scholars.
We invite contributions for spotlight works, feature articles, and exhibition or book reviews responding to the theme. Please submit a manuscript, cover sheet, and 150-word bio to the journal’s page on eScholarship using the submit function, located at: https://escholarship.org/uc/reactreview

Please remove any identifying information from the manuscripts, as submissions will be evaluated through a double-blind review process. We kindly ask that you provide a separate cover sheet with the title, author’s name, contact information, institutional affiliation, and a short bio.

Questions can be directed to the journal co-editors, Iman Salty & Megan J. Sheard, at
reactreviewjournalgmail.com

Article categories available to open submission:

Spotlight articles (1,250-1,500 words): Spotlight articles are open-ended pieces that discuss new research findings, speculate on pressing research questions, or address methodological issues encountered in fieldwork or archival work. They differ from the more formal feature writing in that spotlight pieces are more exploratory and flexible in nature. Spotlight articles provide space for researchers to share works-in-progress, make connections between research and current events, or reflect on methodologies or the experience of conducting research or fieldwork.

Feature articles (3,000-4,000 words): Features are research essays focusing on the theme of the call for papers. Feature articles are accompanied by brief responses from members of the editorial staff in order to deepen the conversation and make connections across research specialties.

Book/exhibition reviews (750 words): Reviews on recent exhibitions or publications should touch on the theme of the current issue.