Verge 6.1 (Displaced Subjects: Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Critical Refugee Studies)

Type:
Journal
Subject Fields:
Asian American History / Studies, Asian History / Studies, Human Rights, World History / Studies

CFP Issue 6.1 - Reminder

Displaced Subjects: Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Critical Refugee Studies

Edited by Tina Chen (Penn State) and Cathy Schlund-Vials (University of CT-Storrs)

This special issue – focused on global human rights and international humanitarianism – is from the outset guided by what sociologist/cultural critic YĂȘn LĂȘ Espiritu has productively characterized as a connected and connective frame of academic inquiry: critical refugee studies. As Espiritu’s strategic nomenclature suggests, “critical refugee studies” takes seriously displaced subjectivity, nationless bodies, and statelessness. The layered contemplation of critical refugee studies deliberately moves beyond the acknowledgement of stateless figures and nationless subjects to methodologically engage what Espiritu has concomitantly defined as integral to this emergent interdiscipline: critical juxtapositioning. Such comparative analyses, which anticipate this issue’s contents and themes, encompass a dialogic situating of ostensibly opposing disciplines (for instance, sociology, education, performance studies, and literature) and seemingly incompatible spaces (for example, military bases, libraries, art galleries, digital platforms, activist workshops, and secondary education classrooms). In so doing, contributors will collectively address the wide-ranging conditions which brought such displaced subjects “into being.”

Equally significantly, these “before” assessments make necessary multivalent and multidisciplinary explorations of wartime aftermaths, which more often than not include involuntary relocations, resistive articulations, imaginative personhoods, and alternative subjectivities. Correspondingly, this scholarly discussion of displaced subjects seeks to move refugees from the periphery to the center of rights-oriented debates involving (non)personhood, (non)selfhood, and (non)nationhood. We welcome critical studies of forced migration on global and intimate scales; the development of alternative analytical frames for understanding displacement and relocation; theoretical treatment of the inter-relationship of militarism and imperialism; multivalent investigation of the varied sites of refugee life; and focused attention to the cultural, aesthetic, and affective dimensions of displaced subjectivity. Integral to this issue’s refugee-centric recalibrations is the extent to which “displaced subjects” render urgently discernible unreconciled histories of global human rights violations as well as the ongoing failures of international humanitarianism.

Essays (between 6,000-10,000 words) should be prepared according to the author-date + bibliography format as outlined in section 2.38 of the University of Minnesota Press style guide, and submitted electronically to verge@psu.edu.

Authors' names should not appear on manuscripts; instead, please include a separate document with the author's name and address and the title of the article with your electronic submission. Authors should not refer to themselves in the first person in the submitted text or notes if such references would identify them; any necessary references to the author's previous work, for example, should be in the third person.

Queries and submissions should be sent to: verge@psu.edu.

Submission deadline: December 1, 2018

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