CFP: CFP for Angelaki: Ontological-Existential Exhaustion: Being-Tired, and Tired-of-Being: a philosophy of fatigue and exhaustion

Call for papers for a Special Issue of Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities

Ontological-Existential Exhaustion:

Being-Tired, and Tired-of-Being: a philosophy of fatigue and exhaustion

Editor: Marina Christodoulou

https://edinburgh.academia.edu/MChristodoulou

Fatigue and exhaustion are critical topics and more prominent in an era of devastation, damage and destruction caused by the Anthropocene. While psychosocial studies have investigated these issues, philosophy has yet to conduct further research on the phenomenon of exhaustion. This compilation of papers will be published as a special journal issue and as a monograph-type of book and seeks to be informed by philosophical, psychosocial, and other research with a view of developing a more phenomenological, existential, and ontological theory of fatigue/exhaustion. 

In particular, this call focuses on dimensions of what can be called the fatigue of being oneself (self-narrative, normative self, ego-psychology etc.) and, more broadly on the ontological-existential fatigue, as the fatigue of being/living/existing itself. Exhaustion as the penultimate end/death.

The editor seeks contributions from all disciplines within Humanities and Social Sciences, including Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Medical Humanities, Environmental Humanities, Literature and other, as well as interdisciplinary perspectives. Although the umbrella concept of this call is what is defined here as Ontological-Existential Exhaustion, we welcome contributions that engage with similar concepts but employ different terminology, as well as contributions that engage with other types, definitions (western or non-western) and conceptualizations of fatigue and exhaustion, or of similar phenomena. 

Contributors are encouraged to explore the following subjects, however these are not exclusive:

·       The work of specific authors or specific books in relation to exhaustion and fatigue: Ecclesiastes and other Theological/Religious Treatises (acedia, etc.), Hesiod, Samuel Beckett, T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land, 1922: exhausted civilization), Ezra Pound, Søren Kierkegaard (repetition), Henri Bergson, Arthur Schopenhauer, Maurice Blanchot, Albert Camus, Marcel Proust, Georges Devereux, Emil Cioran, Sàndor Ferenczi, Siegfried Kracauer, Christian Bobin, Gilles Deleuze, Simone Weil, Emmanuel Levinas, Hannah Arendt, Jean-Luc Nancy, Peter Handke, Byung-Chul Han, Giorgio Agamben (willpower), Frederick Jacobus Johannes Buytendijk (tiredness, hunger, sleep, etc.), Oblomov de Gontcharov, Alain Ehrenberg, Fernando Pessoa, and others.

·       Phenomenological Perspectives (phenomenological psychopathological perspectives; fatigue as a “limit-phenomenon” in phenomenology?), or any other perspectives and approaches from Philosophy throughout its traditions, eras, and geography (existentialism, ontology, aesthetics, ancient philosophy, non-western philosophy, Marxian philosophy, new realisms/materialisms, philosophical anthropology, ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of law, cultural and intercultural philosophy, etc.)

·       Desire, force of life, eros, conatus, “addiction to life” (Christodoulou) and ontological exhaustion, organismic/life-exhaustion

·       “Aesthetics of Existence” (Michel Foucault) and “Anaesthetics of Existence” (Cressida Heyes) and fatigue, Cultural Fatigue, Attentional Fatigue, sensory-overload, Empathy Fatigue, Emotional Fatigue, etc.

·       Intelligence (e.g. in Henri Bergson’s sense) or non-intelligence (idiocy, stupidity?) and Fatigue. The fatigue/tiredness of being with others (Sartre) and of being-in-the world (Heidegger).

·       The fatigue of being oneself (Ehrenberg), of conforming to certain norms, habits, ideas, narratives, quotidian, forms-of-life, etc. The tiredness of repetition of scenarios in life.

·       AI and Dystopian Future, Technology and Fatigue

·       Anthropological and Sociological Essays

·       Conceptual Essays

·       Fatigue/Exhaustion related to disability, physical and mental illness (Chronic-Fatigue Syndrome, Lyme Disease, Auto-immune diseases, Cancer, Depression, Lethargy, Melancholy (Burton), Senescence, “Autistic Fatigue”, Anxiety, Stress, and other)

·        “Psychogenic Death”, “Give-up-itis”, Suicide

·       Exhaustion, Fatigue, Tiredness, Weariness, “Neurasthenia”, “Lethargy”, Acedia, Weltschmerz, Aboulia, Lassitude, Otium, Ennui, and other similar affects/concepts (see, for example, Philippe Zawieja (ed.), Dictionnaire de la fatigue, Genève, Librairie Droz, 2016).

·       Exhaustion/Fatigue and Boredom (Paul Lafargue, and others), Ennui (Baudelaire and 19th Century French Literature in general), etc.

·       Exhaustion/Fatigue and Leisure, Laziness, Sleep, Death

·       Indignation, Violence, Anger, in relation to or as symptoms and effects of Fatigue

·       Fatigue/Exhaustion related to culture, civilization, rhythms, speeds, accelerationism, capitalism, neo-liberalism

·       Fatigue/Exhaustion related to work/labour and anti-work movements (psychology and philosophy of work, burnout, etc.)

·       Interdisciplinary Perspectives, bringing together any of the following: Science, Humanities, Social Sciences, and Art

·       Interviews, Testimonials, Auto-biographical and other First-Person Narratives

·       Feminist and Gender Perspectives (gender-fatigue, the exhaustion of women, etc.)

·       Colonization and Fatigue (indigenous people’s fatigue, the fatigue of minorities, etc.)

·       Psychosocial Studies/Psychoanalysis

·       Theoretical Perspectives from Business Management and Administration

·       Spiritualism/Esotericism

·       Cultural and Historical Perspectives

·       Post-humanistic Perspectives (e.g., the exhaustion, exhaustiveness and exhausting-ness of Humanity, Humanism and the Humanities; the exhausting Anthropocene)

·       Environmental and Ecological Perspectives (“environmental/natural exhaustion”, exhaustion of life/of other forms of life, etc.)

·       Affect Studies

·       Literary, Poetic, and Artistic Perspectives, including Film and the Visual Arts

·       The Exhaustion/Fatigue of/from Philosophy, of Humanities, of Thinking, of Academia, of Institutions, of Culture.

·       Reality, Hyperreality, simulacra, exhaustion.

·       Affirmative contributions to exhaustion/fatigue; exhaustion as the zero-point before “building a new human being” and “a new world” (Irigaray, Posthumanism), and as the starting point and pre-condition for new possibilities (Deleuze), and others, e.g. Peter Handke.

The editor primarily seeks original contributions, and contributions introducing non-well known authors, texts, or concepts/ideas, which will shape a comprehensive and balanced collection, which will stand as a significant addition to literature, and will pave the way towards a paradigmatic shift that has the potential to give birth to a Philosophy of Exhaustion/Fatigue field and/or Exhaustion Humanities or/and Exhaustion/Fatigue Studies. Thus, authors shall take note that their manuscripts shall have a consistent theoretical core and references, and more specifically a philosophical one (broadly understood), despite the discipline that the contribution departs from, and its form. 

The Volume is expected to include invited contributions by renowned scholars from different fields, and especially from Philosophy.

Chapters shall be 2000-12.000 (max) words, inclusive of bibliography and notes. 

Contributions can include the following: original essays, interviews, and “review articles” (Angelaki does not accept standard book reviews though). Translations to English will be taken into account, as long as the responsibility for producing work of publishable quality in the English language lies with the author.

The Special Issue will also be published as a monograph-type book by Routledge in the Angelaki: New Work in the Theoretical Humanities - book series.

Please submit a title and an abstract/brief-outline proposals of between 300-800 words. Additionally, please include an up-to-date curriculum vitae (CV). The deadline for submissions is March 25, 2024. Please send your materials to Marina Christodoulou ([email protected]), who can also address any inquiries you may have. 

The timeline is below:

March 25, 2024 – Abstracts/brief outlines due

April 15, 2024 – Notification of Preliminary Acceptance or Rejection

December 31, 2024 – Completed Manuscripts Due 

June 15, 2025 – Editorial Reviews Completed

November 15, 2025 – Revisions Completed, Final Manuscript Submission, Final Approval of Manuscripts

December 15, 2025 – Beginning of Production Process (Copy Edits and Proofs)

April 2026 – Special Issue Publication Online

January-April 2027 – Republication in the Routledge Book Series

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