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ECONOMIES OF EXCESS
"...it is not necessity but its contrary, luxury, that presents living matter and mankind with their fundamental problems."
Georges Bataille, "The Accursed Share", Volume 1.
Guest Editor: John Armitage
for issue 18 (January 2001)
ABOUT THIS CALL FOR PAPERS
To what extent are the advanced economies now centred upon states or acts of "excess"? What are the philosophical, artistic, and cultural expressions of economic excess and what significance do such manifestations possess? What are the cultural meanings of current forms of global economic excess like unlimited abundance, the "mismanagement" of resources, "unnecessary" cultural expenditure, and waste? What might explain the lavish spending on mind expanding drugs, alcohol, emotional support, performance art, photography,"Titanic" film production, TV "spectaculars", self-sacrificial dieting, flesh piercing, national lotteries, post-industrial pornography, far away vacations, designer food, body enhancement and prosthetics, surplus book mountains, political campaigns, prostitution, information services, compact discs, video games, fast cars, viral financial speculation, and the Internet? What outcomes are there for "re" -production, "maldistribution", "hyper"-consumption, and the cultural analysis of the economic activities of "excess"? Is it possible to think the economy beyond the rationalist and utilitarian presuppositions of Smith "and" Marx? Can we conceive of economic excess as the birth of a new "political" project at the brink of the millennium?...
This issue of "parallax" will concentrate on the burgeoning interest in the ECONOMIES OF EXCESS and the critical cultural theories and practices being elaborated within the humanities, the arts, literature, and cultural studies. The Guest Editor welcomes submissions that engage with the character, significance, and on-going global development of economic "excess" with regard to:
"Bad" Marxism; expenditure and the general economy; psychoanalysis; the artistic avant-garde; digital reproduction in the culture industry; material baseness; mythology; deconstruction; literature; power / knowledge; the spectacle; feminist theory; desire; queer theory; libidinal economy; technoscience; seduction; simulation; transeconomics; the political economy of speed; chaos theory; global and virtual capitalism; cyberculture.
The edition seeks to offer an examination of the economies of excess and also to locate itself among theoretical perspectives stemming from: continental philosophy, the arts, and "critical" cultural studies. It is anticipated that the publication will make a crucial input to these and other gestures to economic excess. Of course, one of the key obstacles facing such a venture is the near certainty that economic excess will itself disrupt any academic, philosophical, artistic, and cultural appeals, along with the practices that attempt to engage with it. ECONOMIES OF EXCESS will therefore open itself up to all forms of critical encounter, inclusive of articles, texts, representations, essays, reviews, and interviews. After all, nothing succeeds like "excess".
Submission Deadline
Final material for peer review by December 31, 1999.
"parallax" is a peer-reviewed journal. Conventional scholarly submissions for ECONOMIES OF EXCESS will be reviewed in the normal way; all material will be read by at least two readers in addition to the Guest Editor.
People considering a submission are welcome to contact the Guest Editor beforehand to discuss their idea(s) or to request further information. A brief biographical note should accompany all submissions and marked ECONOMIES OF EXCESS.
Potential contributors are encouraged to contact the Guest Editor for discussion. For example, if you wish to email material, please contact the Guest Editor first and email an abstract of your piece.
E-mail: John.Armitage@unn.ac.uk
Before preparing your submission, please contact Taylor & Francis for a complete style guide, or visit the "parallax" web page; contact details for "parallax" style guides are given below:
Lora Sharples, Editorial Assistant Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd., One Gunpowder Square, London EC4A 3DE, UK. (http://www.tandf.co.uk).
Papers for this issue of "parallax" should be sent to the Guest Editor, at the address given below.
Papers are accepted for consideration on condition that: the work is original; you own the copyright; you have secured the permission of all named co-authors, and have agreed the order of names for publication; you have secured all permissions for the reproduction of original or derived material from a copyright source; the paper has not been previously published; the paper is not under consideration elsewhere; you will transfer copyright to Taylor & Francis Ltd. if the paper is accepted for publication. No submissions will be returned. There are no page charges in "parallax".
Hard copy: should be sent in triplicate (A4, font size 12, double-spaced, paginated). Word length: should be 2,000 - 7,000 maximum, inclusive of notes and references. Discs: should be IBM compatible (Not MAC). Microsoft Word for Windows.
Contact address:
John Armitage
(ECONOMIES OF EXCESS)
Division of Government & Politics
Room 440
Northumberland Building
University of Northumbria at Newcastle
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 8ST
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0) 191 227 3943
Fax: +44 (0) 191 227 4654
"parallax" is an exciting and provocative cultural studies journal, which seeks to initiate alternative forms of cultural theory and criticism through a critical engagement with the production of knowledge's.
Editors
Joanne Morra and Marquard Smith
Editorial Office:
Centre for Cultural Studies, Department of Fine Art, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK. Tel: +44 (0) 113 2335277; Fax: +44 (0) 113 245 1977; Email: parallax@leeds.ac.uk.
"parallax": FR. parallax f. mod. L parallaxis f. Gk + change, alternation, angle between two lines, f. parallassein, alter, alternate, f. as PARA- + allassein to exchange, f. allos other.
"parallax" seeks to reconfigure contemporary critical theories and cultural practices through a critique of their productions. This is a basis for practicing otherwise. It is an exchange between theory and cultural productions that attempts to radically alter both. Alterations enacted in order to remobilize and repoliticize cultural studies.
The advances and successes of the discipline of cultural studies cannot be over-emphasized. Its destabilization of disciplinary boundaries has productively damaged many of the conservative and traditional ways in which the Academy functions. The inter, cross - and anti-disciplinary approaches that form the genealogy of cultural studies have produced a great deal of critical and important scholarship.
But "parallax" is not a celebration of cultural studies. Rather it is an attempt to make a space available in which dialogue, debate and philosophical contestation can be generated in an interrogation of our own practices. Thus, the predominantly themed nature of each issue of "parallax" is an attempt to bring together diverse approaches, methodologies, subjects and writers in order to produce lively and contentious struggles between them while also bringing to light often-surprising similarities. In a sense, what becomes important in the fusion of these disparate positions under one cover is an utmost concern for the political within the production of knowledge's. It is this that "parallax" seeks to address.
And it is here that "parallax" situates itself and from which it hopes to participate in a redefinition of the study of culture. By continually re-assessing its project and its political strategies "parallax" hopes to contribute to a study of cultural production that is constantly mobile and provocative.
Recent:
TRANSLATING ALGERIA
CULTURAL STUDIES AND PHILOSOPHY
THEORY AND PRACTICE
DISSONANT FEMINISM'S
KOJEVE'S PARIS. NOW BATAILLE
Forthcoming:
KRISTEVA: AESTHETICS, ETHICS, POLITICS
NEO-PRAGMATISM & NEW ROMANTICISMS
PRACTICES OF PROCRASTINATION
POLEMICS. AGAINST CULTURAL STUDIES IN VIOLENCE
Distinguished Contributors include: Jacques Derrida; Helen Cixous; Jean Baudrillard; Gayatri Spivak; Christopher Norris; Sadie Plant; Susan Buck-Morss; Kristin Ross; Linda Hutcheon; Slavoj Zizek; Stanley Rosen; Alphonso Lingis; Sue Golding, and many more...
"parallax" will be of interest to those working in many areas including critical theory, cultural history, gender studies, philosophy, queer theory, english and comparative literature, post-colonial theory, art history and of course cultural studies.
"parallax" is published quarterly (ISSN 1353-4645) at the following subscription rates: Volume 5 1999 Print & Online: Institutional: US $198/stlg120 Personal: US $58/stlg35 (print only)
"parallax" is now available online.
To subscribe to "parallax" send an email to: info@tandf.co.uk
PLEASE DISTRIBUTE THIS CALL FOR PAPERS
John Armitage
Guest Editor, ECONOMIES OF EXCESS.
parallax 18
a journal of metadiscursive theory
and cultural practices
(http://www.tandf.co.uk/JNLS//PAR.htm)
Division of Government & Politics
Room 440
Northumberland Building
University of Northumbria at Newcastle
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 8ST
United Kingdom
John.Armitage@unn.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 191 227 3943
Fax: +44 (0) 191 227 4654
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