Radical Vitality/Axé - Apocalyptica Special Issue
Organization: CAPAS
Proposals will be accepted in Spanish, Portuguese, and English
Se aceptarán propuestas en castellano, portugués e inglés (véase más abajo)
Serão aceitas propostas em espanhol, português e inglês (ver em baixo)
Call for papers: Special issue of Apocalyptica
in collaboration with the Caribbean Institute for Decolonial Thought and Research (INCAPID/GLEFAS)
Radical Vitality/Axé
Edited by Yuderkys Espinosa-Miñoso and Ashanti Dinah Orozco Herrera
Abstracts are due March 30, 2023
Final manuscripts are due August 31, 2023
“There is no end / To what a living world / Will demand of you."
Octavia Butler
"In search of a world, the Negroes and the enslaved of yesterday and today have resisted enslavement, but they have also resisted the colonial inhabitation of the Anthropocene."
Malcom Ferdinand
We understand vitality as the innate capacity for survival and search for fulfillment on the part of each community of life and of each being in particular. Different systems of thought have seen and characterized this capacity and have named it in various ways: Axé, k'uh, pneuma, prana, tao. With this special issue of Apocalyptica, published in collaboration with the Caribbean Institute for Decolonial Thought and Research (INCAPID), we want to open a space for exploring and approaching the principles of life as well as the epistemologies and spiritualities that govern the many worlds organized by the descendants of Africa and extra-European native peoples in Abya Yala, in Europe, and in the World, which, in different ways, navigate and resist the ontological matrix produced by European modernity. We invite authors to consider the ways in which these worlds face and challenge the hierarchical separation between humans and nature, as well as the linear and finite temporality of Western modernity, according to which the so-called "natural progress" of the human species would inevitably lead to the/an end of everything that exists. We want to explore the creative potentials and radical vitality present in Indigenous, Afro-diasporic, and migrant experiences, which persist in the production of life and contribute to the construction of ‘other’ worlds – worlds that counter the domination and exploitation of a Eurocentric modernity, instead focusing on complementarity and coexistence between all beings. Taking into account the importance of affective bonds of solidarity and resistance, we want to emphasize communal practices centered on enjoyment, mutual care, and the reproduction of the commons. What are the narratives, rationalities, and temporalities that sustain such practices? What are the worlds they (re)create? In what way do they confront the meaning of ‘world’ and its rationality? How do they challenge the linear narratives of European modernity? Considering aspects such as ancestry, spirituality, and memory, we ask how these worlds respond to a program of liberation and good living that manages to transcend racial capitalism, coloniality, and death.
The special issue wants to contribute to strengthening intellectual exchange, solidarity, and lasting relationships between a wide range of academics, thinkers, and activists; bringing into dialogue Afro-diasporic, Indigenous and migrant thought and experiences in Abya Yala, in Europe, and in the World, including perspectives from different cultural and linguistic spheres (Spanish-speaking, Portuguese-speaking, Anglophone). We particularly invite Afro-descendant, Indigenous, and racialized migrant intellectuals, academics, artists, and activists from the global south to submit their contributions, and we encourage proposals that combine academic perspectives with activist, artistic, and spiritual perspectives.
Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
- Anti-futurism, alternative futures, and multi-temporality
- Relationality and complementarity: their political, epistemic and ontological implications against the end of the world
- Afro-epistemology: its creative and generative capacities
- Afro-diasporic and Indigenous spirituality: relations between ancestry, art, and agency
- Alternative rationalities, spatialities and temporalities: maroonage, and construction of community and communality as an alternative to the Anthropocene
- Forms of dialogue between Afro-diasporic, Indigenous, and migrant worlds and thought, e.g. sumak kawsay or good living, vivir sabroso, ubuntu.
- Agency and resistance: decoloniality, liberation, practices of survival, re-construction of archives and genealogies, creation of mythical spaces, and other spaces
Submission
- We accept academic articles and essays, as well as artistic and creative contributions on the aforementioned topics including the following formats: painting, photography, collage, poetry.
- Languages: Proposals will be accepted in Spanish, Portuguese, and English, and each article will be published in two languages respectively; in Spanish and English or in Portuguese and English. The translation will be organized and paid for by the journal. The peer review will be in the language of the original manuscript.
- Manuscripts must have a wordcount of 8,000 – 9,000 words (including abstract, notes, and bibliography) and use Chicago style referencing (author-date system). For more information, please review the journal's submission guidelines: https://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/index.php/apocalyptica/submit
- In the case of artistic and creative contributions in formats like painting, photography, and collage, up to three pieces per author can be handed in. In the case of poetic contributions, the maximum length is three A4 pages.
- Academic articles and essays will undergo double-blind peer review.
Timeline
- The special issue will be published as a special issue of Apocalyptica in 2024.
- The deadline for submission of abstracts (max 500 words), including bibliography and brief biography (50-70 words) is March 30, 2023. Please submit via e-mail to both editors by the deadline.
- Selection of proposals: April 15, 2023
- Deadline for receiving manuscripts: August 31, 2023
Guest editors
Yuderkys Espinosa-Miñoso (INCAPID/GLEFAS): espinosayuderkys@gmail.com
Ashanti Dinah Orozco Herrera (Harvard University): dinah.orozco@gmail.com
The Journal
Apocalyptica is an open-access, international, double-blind peer reviewed interdisciplinary, academic journal published by the Käte Hamburger Centre for Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies (CAPAS) at Heidelberg University. The journal publishes thought-provoking voices about the ends of worlds and critically explores the apocalyptic imaginary from various perspectives, including historical experiences of endings and beginnings, as well as temporal and material aspects of the ends of worlds, but also the creative potential of survival, resistance, and construction of new worlds. For more information see:
https://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/index.php/apocalyptica/index
https://www.capas.uni-heidelberg.de/index.en.html
https://www.capas.uni-heidelberg.de/cfp_apocalyptica_radical_vitality_axe.html
Yuderkys Espinosa-Miñoso