CFP: Journal Special Issue - A Festschrift for Peter Lamarque

Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics

SPECIAL ISSUE – A Festschrift for Peter Lamarque

Guest Editor: Washington Morales-Maciel (Professor of Philosophy, Universidad de la República, Uruguay)

In felicitation of Peter Lamarque’s oeuvre, we are bringing out a special issue titled “A Festschrift for Peter Lamarque”. This edition aims to celebrate his distinguished academic career, characterized by a commitment to the highest standards of clarity, intellectual depth, and rigorous thought. His internationally acclaimed work has significantly shaped diverse fields within the arts, challenging traditional debates in aesthetics and pioneering new directions within the discipline.

The journal itself has had the privilege of serving as both a platform for his original contributions and as a witness to his influence, with him also serving as an honorary member of the editorial board. In recognizing the breadth of his scholarship and the generosity of his intellectual spirit, the journal aims to pay tribute to a body of work that has, from its inception, treated literature as a vital subject within philosophical aesthetics.

Lamarque’s approach challenges the narrow subordination of literary theory to the semantics and pragmatics of fiction, while also resisting the dissolution of boundaries between continental literary criticism and the social sciences. His enduring contributions to the discipline’s distinct identity, his defence of its autonomy, and his forward-looking research initiatives collectively form a philosophical legacy that this special issue seeks to honour.

We invite original research articles in 5,000-10,000 words (MLA style) addressing, among others, but not exclusively, the following topics and problems:

I. Metacriticism – Aesthetic Interpretation of Literature

i. What are or should be the aims of literary interpretation?

ii. What is the nature of the principles of literary rationality?

iii. What are the specific contributions of the logical-philosophical investigation of fiction to the aesthetic understanding of literature?

iv. What are the theoretical strengths and weaknesses of thought theory for the solution of the paradox of fiction?

v. What are the boundaries between literary, philosophical, psychological and psychoanalytical interpretations?

II. Ontology of Literature

i. What are the objects suitable for literary interpretation?

ii. What is the nature of the aesthetic properties of literature?

iii. What are the conditions of identity and subsistence of works of art, particularly literary works?

iv. Is the construction of characters analogous to the construction of personal identities or the construction of persons?

III. Epistemic Assumptions of Metacriticism

i. What notions of knowledge are presupposed in the contemporary philosophy of literature?

ii. Are recent humanist philosophical programs consistent with conventionalist aesthetics, or can they find foundations in it?

IV. Ethics and Literature

i. Is the aesthetic value of literature ultimately an ethical value?

ii. Is the value of a literary work a function of its ethical content, whether positive or negative?

V. Methodologies of Speculative Aesthetics

i. What are the strengths and legitimacy of transcendental-analytic analyses in conventionalist aesthetics?

ii. Are there substantial differences between sociological and transcendental-analytic analyses of literature?

iii. What are the limits and scope of empirical aesthetics compared to those of speculative aesthetics?

iv. Is a conventionalist elucidation of literary creation, archaic art, and even art outside the boundaries of the Western canon possible?

Submission deadline: 31 March 2025

Email: [email protected], [email protected]