CFP: Call for Papers: Chiasma: A Site for Thought Volume 9: Philosophy / Fascism / State

Chiasma
A Site for Thought

CALL FOR PAPERS
Volume 9: Philosophy / Fascism / State

Theme and Scope:

The interconnection(s) between philosophy and Fascism is a problematic that has roots as far back as Ancient Greece. While not Fascism in the modern sense of the word, the State—and in particular the tyrants utilizing it—either usurped philosophical ideas to justify their claims to power or had philosophers in their employ. As history marched forward, philosophy followed in tow, often subordinated to the State itself. Indeed, one could plausibly read Plato’s Republic or Hobbes’ Leviathan not merely as works of political philosophy in the abstract, but playbooks for authoritarian leadership, tools taken up by the “Crown Jurist of the Third Reich” himself, Carl Schmitt. More importantly, however, it is not just political philosophy that has been captured by authoritarianism—philosophy, and in turn, philosophers themselves have become idealogues, intimately cozying up with far-Right political ideals. One needn’t look far to verify such a claim. From the Right-Hegelianism of Giovanni Gentile in Italy, to Oswald Spengler’s connections to the Nazi State, to the political and metaphysical Fascism of Martin Heidegger, to the exposure of Paul de Man’s political proclivities, to recent uptakes of Right-Nietzscheanism by former NJIT lecturer Jason Reza Jorjani and “dissident” Internet philosopher, Bronze Age Pervert, it becomes increasingly difficult to make the claim that any given thinker is a one-off crypto-Fascist—an outlier—as within every decade of the 20th century, one can find mainstream philosophers imbricated with, if not Fascism properly speaking, then far-Right or latent Fascistic ideals.

Recognizing a Philosophico-Fascistic connection, Volume 9 of Chiasma seeks to follow the trajectory of Gramsci’s analysis and critique of Mussolini’s Italy, examinations of Nazi Germany by Bauman and Frankfurt School theorists such as Adorno and Horkheimer, and the countless other anti-Fascist thinkers who have attacked far-Right invocations at every juncture in history.

It is from this perspective that we encourage theorists to engage with contemporary Fascist studies, taking seriously the rising threat of Fascism (under whatever mask it may don). Given that, potential submissions may want to take up themes such as, but not limited to:

• the historical inter-relationship between philosophy and Fascism (or are the two not, in fact, imbricated?)
• attempts to, following our theoretical forebears, save philosophy from Fascistic impulses which can be seen in all sub-disciplines (e.g., the hierarchical world of the Platonic forms, the rigidly regulatory methodology of Kant, etc.)
• the role Enlightenment (or anti-Enlightenment) thought as such plays in justifying far-Right ideals
• the glorification and fetishization of violence / strength (e.g., posthumous Nietzschean publications / readings, Georges Sorel, etc.)
• the aesthetics of Fascism and/or the politicization of aesthetics à la the Italian Futurists, Walter Benjamin, etc.
• pre- and post-Enlightenment figures of the human as they relate to exclusionary practices and/or contemporary uses and abuses of biogenetic concepts (e.g., Sylvia Wynter’s “Man1–Man2,” eugenic and/or ‘scientifically’ racist tendencies in the early biological theories of Carl Linnaeus, Georges Cuvier, Ernst Haeckel, and Julian Huxley, recapitulated by contemporary ‘race realists’ such as Jared Taylor or Steve Sailer, etc.)
• links between Fascism and modernity (e.g., Roger Griffin, Fernando Esposito, etc.)
• contemporary instantiations of Fascism à la Internet “Right-Nietzscheanism,” (NRx) Neoreaction, Silicon Valleyite Monarchism, etc.
• the connections / integrations of occultism and/or esotericism and Fascist ideologies
• (e.g., Julius Evola, Miguel Serrano, etc.)
• links between deep ecology and “Ecofascism” (e.g., Savitri Devi, Pentti Linkola, etc.)
• psychology / psychoanalysis and Fascism (e.g., Wilhelm Reich, Georges Bataille, etc.)
• what Fascism actually is and/or how it functions (e.g., Umberto Eco’s Ur-Fascism, Robert Paxton’s Anatomy of Fascism, and/or other seminal definitional texts)
• what the actual philosophy of Fascism as such is (e.g., M.N. Roy, Mario Palmieri, Pierre Drieu la Rochelle, etc.)
• as yet un(der)-theorized account(s) of some other aspect(s) of Fascism not mentioned above

At the end of the day (reworking Jacques Derrida), Fascism can survive—and indeed, thrive—because of “the semantic vacancy or indetermination at the very center of the concept.” If we shine a light on the relationship between philosophy and Fascism—and the ways in which it appropriates philosophical ideas, be they seemingly neutral metaphysical accounts of the world or problematic philosophies of science—we may strip it of its indeterminacy and more accurately fix our sights on our target. If Fascism exists today, it is only because “[w]e do not yet know what we have inherited.”

Submission Guidelines:

Chiasma accepts any and all manuscripts related to the topic at hand. That being said, submissions should be theoretically rigorous and diverse, in keeping with the trans-disciplinary nature of the journal. We ask for complete papers between 6,000–10,000 words that conform to a slightly modified version of the Chicago Manual of Style with footnotes and no bibliography (see our Style Guidelines). If there are original works of art that you think might fit within the theme, please get in contact via the email below. When submitting your manuscript, please include two documents:

1. the complete text of your manuscript with any identifying information removed (for help, see here), and
2. a title page that includes your full name, email address, institutional affiliation, short biography (no more than 100 words), and an abstract (no more than 300 words)

Please submit your manuscript via our submission page here. The deadline for submissions is January 31, 2024.

Should you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at [email protected].