CFP: War after War: Reflections on the legacy of WWI

On 28 July 1914, an armed conflict began that would forever change the world, and the concept of war itself. The war rapidly extended, involving 28 countries and spreading to the entire world. At the closing of the conflict, on 11 November 1918, millions of people were dead and millions wounded.

It was the first time an armed conflict caused such a degree of death and destruction in so short a time. From the development of new and more destructive war technologies, to a new ability to mobilize the masses that transformed, as Ernst Jünger observed, the war from partial to total: everything about World War I contributed to an unprecedented event that would – as George L. Mosse and Antonio Gibelli, among others, have underlined – deeply modify the cultural and political landscapes, as well as the state of mind of Europe in the Twentieth century.

One hundred years after the beginning of World War I, Politics. Rivista di studi politiciwill retrace that tragic moment in world history in an ‘indirect’ way, through articles that reveal the way the Great War and its echoes influenced the production of political thought in the following decades.

Article proposals may include the – direct or indirect – way in which war has:

• Influenced the concepts of war or peace, as well as the relations between politics and war, and those between politics and peace;
• Triggered the production of theories and philosophies of peace, as well as new projects for the international order;
• Changed the concept of violence in relation to politics;
• Contributed to the transformation of pre-existing theories/philosophies/categories/political cultures;
• Given way to a new phase in the relation between politics and the masses (new forms of consensus and legitimization; political ideologies on war; etc.);
• Influenced the production of new theories/philosophies/categories/political cultures;
• Determined the formation of future political-institutional orders;
• Influenced the symbolic-political and meta-political spaces;

Analyses of other ways in which world War I has influenced the theorization of politics are also welcome.

We particularly welcome contributions from scholars working in the following fields: political philosophy, history of ideas, history of political institutions, political theory, cultural studies, postcolonial studies. Interdisciplinary approaches are also particularly welcome.

Send article proposals (max 2000 characters plus a short bibliography) to the following email address: [email protected]

Deadlines

• 20 September 2014: article proposal submission;
• 30 September: abstract selection by the editorial board;
• 30 October: submission of full articles;
• 15 November: double blind review deadline;
• 1 December: completion of revised versions of articles;
• 15 December 2014: publication.