Critique & Humanism journal, vol. 61 (2/2024):
“Memory, history, genre”
(co-edited by Daniela Koleva and Bogdana Paskaleva)
In contemporary critical thought and within the framework of the humanities, the legacy of the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries bears upon the development of the Modern notion of history, where the historical is no longer simply the knowledge of the past, that has been preserved in antient chronicles. The past starts being perceived through the prism of the present and the future, and respectively, exerts its influence on them. Thus, history allows the present to relate to itself reflexively, as an integral part of larger temporal processes and unities. On the other hand, after the demise of grand narratives, history becomes fragmented and always interpreted from a specific present perspective, while the right to have a voice in the evaluation of the past becomes ever more democratic. Memory as the past experience of the individual or as the shared world of a community (collective memory) cuts into the historical dimension, intermingles with it, and thus plays a key part in shaping the perception of the present.
However, regardless of their content, memory and history are always molded by existing forms – narrative, verbal, visual, spatial, performative, etc., whose rules of construction are to the same extent historically brought about. The large units of these forms are usually designated with term genre. Understood not only as a narrow philological or literary notion, but in a broader sense, as an inherited framework of transfer of memory in a given cultural environment, genre could open up unpredictable perspectives to the studies of memory and history. The aim of the current issue of the journal “Critique and Humanism” is to ask the question of the relation between genre and historical knowledge, between genre and individual/collective memory.
In what manner does history take up historically emerged genre forms? Does the discursive framing of memory influence the ways in which memory is experienced? What is the meaning of genre forms – fictional, as well as non- or parafictional – with respect to the content they are intended to convey? Is there room in contemporary research on history and memory for such a basic understanding of the interrelation between historical content and genre form?
Suggested fields of study:
- Memory and history – framing of the historical narrative.
- Memory, genre, and experience.
- Genre as historically emerged form.
- Individuals and communities in genre forms.
- Fictional and nonfictional genres.
- Innovation and transformation of genre.
- Theory and history of genre.
- Functions of genre.
- Genre as a point of intersection of past and present.
- Oral and written genres.
- Material, visual, and spatial aspects of genre and their relation to memory.
- Verbal, visual, musical, etc. aspects of genre.
- Genre and technical reproducibility.
- Genre and memory in cinema and performative arts.
Deadline for submission of texts: 15 May 2024;
Layout guidelines: link
Send proposal and texts to: hssfoundation1@gmail.com, veronika.s.dimitrova@gmail.com.
Critique & Humanism journal, vol. 60 (1/2024):
“Intimacy: practices, discourses and politics”
(co-edited by Gergana Nenova, Tatyana Kotzeva, Veronika Dimitrova)
In the context of the public debate about violence in intimate relationships, the forthcoming issue of Critique and Humanism Journal aims to study the meanings, representations and practices of intimacy. Increasingly moving away from the classical notion of romantic love, modern forms of intimacy are an uncertain terrain marked by expectations of reciprocity and trust, equality, sexual satisfaction and avoidance of ”toxic” behaviors. If, as Anthony Giddens claims, the transformations of intimacy in modern societies reflect changes in the patterns of gender relations, sexuality and family life, this poses the important question of the contours and directions of these transformations in Bulgarian society.
What are the discourses that influence notions of love, sexuality, intimacy, partnership? What is the role of digital technologies in the ”blurring” of definitions and practices of intimacy? Are ”relationships”in modern societies technologically mediated or technologically created? How are the immanent uncertainties of intimacy navigated, and with what risks are intimate relationships “charged”? How are gendered differences in notions and practices of intimacy changing? How do non-normative forms of intimacy such as same-sex relationships and non-monogamous relationships appear, assert and become publicly legitimate in a familistic society like the Bulgarian one?
These are just some of the questions that we will seek answers to in this thematic issue. Publications can be either purely theoretical or based on empirical research.
Possible subject fields in which we expect manuscripts are:
- Theoretical approaches to intimacy
- Public institutions and the regulation of intimacy
- Digital technologies and intimacy
- Sexuality and representations of sexuality
- Violence and abuse in intimate relationships
- Socio-cultural notions of love and intimacy
- Generational dynamics in notions of intimacy
- Gender and social roles in intimate relationships
- Vulnerabilities and risks in intimate relationships
- Ethnical and religious differences in intimacy
Deadline for submission of manuscripts: January 10, 2024
Articles formatted according to the magazine’s requirements for authors can be sent to hssfoundation1@gmail.com and to editor-in-chief veronika.s.dimitrova@gmail.com.
Issue 59 of Critique & Humanism journal:
“Space and Environment”
(co-edited by Simeon Kyurkchiev, Bogdana Paskaleva, Maria Martinova and Veronika Dimitrova; expected publication by December 2023)
The coming issue of Critique and Humanism Journal is addressing two concepts that are generally familiar, yet easily fading into the background ‒ space and environment. How to think of that which is around us? When, with the aid of what expert knowledge, through which notions and images do we manage to speak of it? What types of techniques are utilized to make it comprehensible and governable? When does space successfully turn into ‘alien’ or ‘ours’? How do we interact with all around us that we recognize as environment; how do we find its rules, regularities, and frontiers? What practices of representation or mapping, real or symbolic, can we describe? How does space relate to freedom and order?
In this future issue of the journal, we look for the various notions, approaches, ideas of the spaces and environments that we dwell in and that we are immersed in. We will welcome your contribution in the analysis of these concepts, their applications for understanding urban, cultural and surrounding environment, for interpreting specific spaces in which various groups interact. We are interested in the processes of defining, measuring, discovering and rediscovering, forming, dwelling and protecting space and environment, in the experts and policies that approach them. We want to investigate how environment becomes stabilized or destabilized. What are the philosophical, sociological, anthropological and artistic interpretations of the notions of space and environment; and the technological mediations of space and their inevitable effects on our daily lives?
Topics:
- Urban environment, urban policy and urban planning
- Geographic space and practices of representation
- Fictional and real space
- Environment and ecology
- Utopia and heterotopia
- Environment and governmentality
- Ontology of space
- Technologies of space
- Historical metamorphoses of space
- Images and notions of spaces
- Modernity and spatial revolutions
- Real and virtual spaces
Deadline for submission of manuscripts: May 15, 2023
Articles formatted according to the magazine’s requirements for authors can be sent to hssfoundation1@gmail.com and to editor-in-chief veronika.s.dimitrova@gmail.com.