Special Issue Call for Papers “Narratives of Crisis: Representing Capitalist Realism”
Bringing together researchers, theorists, and visual artists, the special issue “Narratives of Crisis: Representing Capitalist Realism” aims to provide a platform for discussions and research, which consider various aspects of the visual and its implication to both ideological formations and cultural forms related albeit not limited to the notion of crisis. The issue invites contributions that examine the crisis discourse offering a comparative charting and adopting an inclusive definition of the term derived from new scholarship and the concept of “capitalist realism” as introduced by British theorist Mark Fisher (2009). Fisher’s concept of capitalist realism, as described in his eponymous book, articulates “a pervasive atmosphere, conditioning not only the production of culture but also the regulation of work and education, and acting as a kind of invisible barrier constraining thought and action.”
The term capitalist realism was first introduced in the early 1960s by a group of four Düsseldorf-based artists – Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Konrad Lueg, and Manfred Kuttner – as the West German parody version of the American Pop Art. Ironically labeled as a “movement”, it combined a certain fascination for mass media and advertising with criticism of the consumer culture of post-war West German society. Against the backdrop of the Cold War, capitalist realism’s kitschy idealization inspired several critical art movements of the following era. The term reemerged briefly in 1984, to describe advertising’s ability to pick up values already in the capitalist culture. It was reintroduced in the 2000s, by Fisher, as a concept not confined to art or to the quasi-propagandistic way in which advertising functions. Following Frederic Jameson’s infamous dictum that postmodernism has been the cultural logic of late capitalism, capitalist realism could be understood today as the cultural logic of TINA – Margaret Thatcher’s self-fulfilling prophecy that “There Is No Alternative”, which proved to be the most succinct slogan for the modern capitalist system one could ever imagine. Living in an endless “eternal now”, we no longer seem able to imagine a future that might be different from the present. In these terms, capitalist realism is the widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it.
Capitalist realism, thus, is an ideological framework for viewing capitalism and its effects on politics, economics, and public thought – that is to consider both the realms of the economic and the cultural. As such, it bears a critical capacity to explain ideological formations as well as cultural forms, describing both the intensification of global capitalism’s accumulation strategies as well as their representational logic.
The guest editor invites contributions related to the topic, from a multiplicity of disciplinary and theoretical viewpoints. Articles should range between 4,000 and 8,000 words. We will also include review essays of academic books and/or curated exhibitions (1500-2000 words); and visual essays (1000-3000 words, plus 10-15 images).
Deadline for submissions: May 8th, 2023
For any queries, please contact the guest editor, Penelope Petsini ppetsini@uniwa.gr
Useful link for the submission: https://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/DAC/index
