CFP: Ontological Anarché: Beyond Materialism and Idealism

Radical theory has always been beset by the question of ontology, albeit to varying degrees and under differing conditions. In recent years, in particular, political metaphysics has returned with force: the rise of Deleuze-influenced “new materalism”, along with post-/non-Deleuzean speculative realism and object-oriented ontology, all bear testament to this. In this same period, anarchism has returned as a major influence on social movements and critical scholarship alike. What then, are some of the potential resonances between these currents, particularly given that anarchism has so often been understood/misunderstood as a fundamentally idealist philosophy?

Is it the case, as Marx famously held in The German Ideology and The Poverty of Philosophy, that anarchism fails to account for the full complexity of the ontological? Is there a lack of concern for instance, with the actual circumstances that would make social transformation possible? Is anarchism a theory for which materiality is “distorted in the imagination of the egoist”, inevitably producing a subject “for whom everything occurs in the imagination?” Should “Sancho” (Max Stirner), for instance, have “descended from the realm of speculation into the realm of reality”?

Or is the opposition of materialism and idealism itself a barrier to a higher, more powerful convergence, as recent anarchist/anarchistic thinkers from Hakim Bey to Reiner Schürmann have argued? This special issue of Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies considers these questions in dialogue with new materialism, speculative realism and object-oriented ontology, in order to seek new points of departure. We are interested in papers that open up a space for these and other questions to be pursued.

Papers need not be tied to any particular tradition of thought (i.e., post-anarchism, speculative realism, or the anarchist tradition). We welcome creative, speculative, provocative, and risky para-academic research. If your current research relates to these topics, we encourage you to submit a proposal or a paper. We also welcome multi-media contributions.

Articles may be of varying length, submitted to Jason Adams: jason.adams@williams.edu, cc to Duane.Rousselle@egs.edu

The deadline for final submission is October 1st, 2012.