On_Culture: The Open Journal for the Study of Culture

Call for Abstracts for Issue 4 (Abstracts 3/15, 2017; Full Papers 6/30, 2017)

ALTERITY IN THE NEWSREELS OF 1968. 50 YEARS LATER

Guest Editors: Danae Gallo González, Lyubomir Pozharliev

The fourth issue of On_Culture focusses on scholarship that draws attention to ‘alterity’, a concept which sets the focus on relational, moral, and ethical aspects of a multiplicity of ‘othernesses’ produced by a specific discourse to maintain an epistemology and the groups supporting it. After Trump’s first weeks in office and the rise of extreme-right parties in Europe, the political consequences derived from the production of alterity narratives are especially evident. Alterity narratives shall be understood as narratives about ‘other’ (inter-/intra)national, political, gendered, racialized groups embodied by a variety of social classes and generations and discursively excluded from a specific identity construction.

In the light of the 50th anniversary of 1968 in 2018, On_Culture wants to close 2017 by boosting the celebration of this memorial year with a study of the constructions of alterity produced by the newsreels around the world in the course of it. The 1960s and more specifically 1968 can be regarded as a crucial point for the societal awareness and activism for and by minorities, until then only referred to as ‘others’. Therefore, an analysis of the understanding and conceptualization of ‘alterity’ narratives produced during this pioneer period can shed new light on the problem.

Cultural studies written on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of 1968 went beyond narrow political and national approaches by focusing on deconstructing master narratives. They insisted on the need to tackle it from a methodological transnational perspective. Yet, the goal to approach 1968 from a broad thematically, conceptually and methodologically transnational perspective is still not complete. These studies tended to center on the protest movements, on showing their contradictions as well as the reasons for their failure or success. There is barely any research devoted to countries where the movements of 1968 never happened or were censored and silenced. Not to speak of all other kind of events, counter-discourses, and alterity narratives medialized in different formats during this period.

This issue of On_Culture draws attention to the essential turn in the study of 1968 and aims at further developing its focus on transnational and comparative studies of alterity. It will elucidate the narratives produced by the newsreels’ audio, visual, and textual semantics which signified the different facets of 1968. Newsreels were broadcasted all over the world from the late 19th century to the mid-1980s. However, they are still not well investigated from an academic, and even less from a cultural historical perspective. The literature committed to this genre has been mostly devoted to map the newsreels’ industry, its generic and formal features, and content-wise to the First and Second World Wars. Nevertheless, there is still scarce work on the contents in other periods of the newsreel’s history and on the alterity narratives generated by this media format.

This volume welcomes proposals by scholars from all fields in the humanities, social sciences, and other areas of the study of culture working on the representation either of alterity or on newsreels. It particularly invites contributions from authors who are able to provide country-specific and/or comparative transnational analyses of how 1968’s newsreels depict a variety of alterities and/or othernesses. Due to the underrepresentation of Eastern European countries in the study of newsreels, this issue of On_Culture especially encourages applications by scholars working on newsreels in the former communist countries. Articles dedicated to the representation of alterity in other media formats, such as TV, radio, and the written press are also welcome. Alternatively, essays may suggest meta-theoretical, meta-methodological, and meta-generic contributions about the concept of ‘alterity,’ as well as about the genre of the newsreels.

Contributions can deal with any of the above-mentioned topics, but are by no means restricted to them. On_Culture: The Open Journal for the Study of Culture is a biannual, peer-reviewed academic e-Journal created and edited by doctoral researchers, postdocs and professors working at the GCSC. It provides a platform and forum for pursuing and reflecting on the study of culture. It investigates, problematizes and develops key concepts and methods in the field. More often than not, developing such new approaches and emerging topics is a collaborative and collective process. It also features a section called “Perspectives” which is devoted to shorter, creative pieces pertaining to each issue topic. These can include interviews, opinion pieces, reviews of exhibitions, analyses of cultural artefacts and events, photo galleries, videos, works of art…and more. These contributions shall be posted on a rolling basis.

Proposals of 300 words for contributions (article-length paper or shorter creative/essayistic pieces) are requested by March 15, 2017; they should also include a short author’s bio (100 words). You will be notified by March 31, 2017 whether your proposal has been accepted. Selected authors will be asked to submit full articles of 50.000 characters (including foot/endnotes and spaces) by June 30, 2017. Proposals and articles will be selected in a double-blind peer review process. Please submit your proposal to both editors of the special issue:

Danae Gallo González, M.A.: Danae.Gallo-Gonzalez@gcsc.uni-giessen.de
(Postdoctoral Researcher. International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture)

Lyubomir Pozharliev, M.A.: Lyubomir.Pozharliev@gcsc.uni-giessen.de
(Doctoral Researcher. International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture)