CFP: A Philosophy of Resistance

Resistance as a response to structure has been—and will be—an answer as long as structural systems, power dynamics, social frameworks, and institutional frameworks govern bodies. 

Scholars like Mbembe hint at the lack of possible resistance from the living dead in his notion of Necropolitics.  Giorgio Agamben discusses the impossibilities of resistance with states of bare life in Homo Sacer. Baudrillard notes its relation to power, but power as a simulacrum of itself, always seeking to end what points at its absence. Camu attempts to encompass it but misses a radical view of resistance as he believes no situation justifies violence as legitimate in itself. With oppressive frameworks, we see how suffering changes the approach to the ways we think about resistance. 

This calls request essays that approach a philosophy of resistance from—but not limited to—integrative frameworks, including:

Ethnographic approaches to resistance

Historical examinations of resistance

The philosophy of resistance 

Resistance and suffering 

The metaphysics of resistance

The ethics of resistance 

Power and resistance 

Ableism and resistance 

Ecological resistance

Decolonial frameworks of resistance (including critical gender, feminist, trans, and queer studies) 

The black radical tradition and resistance

Migration and resistance 

Race and resistance 

Religion and resistance.

All thinkers are encouraged to submit to allow for a wider examination of the theme. All submissions will go through blind peer review. Please submit a short bio, no more than 150 words. Bios are used for printing of selected papera and not for review. Please submit an abstract of 300-500 words to [email protected] by July 31st. Full essays are due by September 1st, with a round or edits to be sent back. January 1 is the last day for submission of edits. Final papers will be submitted through Duosuma. 

The edited volume will be released in the summer of 2026, printed and distributed through Awatum Press. Contributors will receive a copy of the book and an equal amount of any literary award, equating 50% of full award, split between the chosen contributors. 

Format

Papers should be 3000-7000 words. Longer papers are accepted on a case-by-case basis based on merit of scholarship. Please use 12-point font. British English ending of words -ise (organize, realise, recongnise, theorise, criticise) should be used over -ize. Judgment should be ‘judgement’ with an ‘e’ unless referring to legal judgment. The full form of verbs, e.g. I cannot (not I can't), we do not (not we don't) etc. Single quotations should replace double quotations (should be ‘this’, instead of “this”) and should be inside of punctuation, unless quoting an entire sentence (with this, ‘this would be correct’. With this, ‘this would be incorrect.’)

Please submit docx file and a PDF for review. Manuscripts chosen for publication must eventually conform to The Chicago Manual of Style, seventeenth edition. Include a SEPARATE LIST OF WORKS CITED at the end of the paper, using FULL AUTHOR NAMES (not first initials).

For accessibility to a wider audience, please add supplementary information in footnotes if needed, rather than in-text explanations.    

Email [email protected] with any questions. 

The call has been curated by a series of thinkers across philosophy, literature, historiography, sociology, and art.