No Lost Causes: An Anthology of Conservative Writing
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Call for Chapter Proposals for an Edited Collection
No Lost Causes: An Anthology of Conservative Writing on Art, Society, and Culture
Since the middle of the twentieth century, cultural criticism in the West has been dominated by post-structuralist assumptions about truth, meaning, universal values, etc. Long before then, however, it was understood that art had a higher purpose, that artists sought to inculcate certain values in their audience, whether moral, ethical, or religious. Theorists from Aristotle to Matthew Arnold took it for granted that works of art, in short, do not exist merely for their own sake, but to teach us something about the human experience. Through the work of Paul Elmore More, Irving Babbitt, T. S. Eliot, and the Southern Agrarians, among others, the lingering influence of this view endured into the twentieth century.
I invite proposals for an edited collection of essays that seek to continue these efforts in the twenty-first. Our goal is to articulate and defend conservative approaches to art, society, and culture, like those favored by the individuals named above. Essays are welcome on a wide range of topics, including conservatism in or and any of the following:
Ancient Greece or Rome
Medieval or early modern art
The Romantic or Victorian eras
Critical evaluations of post-structuralism and its off-shoots (e.g., Marxism, gender theory)
Specific authors or literary theorists
Christianity
Popular culture
I am also interested in analyses of individual books, movies, and other forms of art that reflect a conservate sensibility. Regardless of topic, the focus of your essay should be aesthetic, rather than political.
Queries and proposals are welcome from recent graduates, independent scholars, and established academics alike. If interested, please send an abstract of 100 - 200 words and a CV to camilo.peralta@jjc.edu by 15 July 2024. I expect to make a decision on submitted proposals by the end of summer. Initial drafts of 5000 - 8000 words, in Turabian / Chicago, would be due by 31 January 2025.
About the editor: Camilo Peralta, PhD, is an Associate Professor of English at Joliet Junior College who has published widely on religion, fantasy, and science fiction. His first scholarly monograph, The Wizard of Mecosta: Russell Kirk, Gothic Fiction, and the Moral Imagination, is available now from Vernon Press: https://vernonpress.com/book/1933
https://jjc.academia.edu/CamiloPeralta
Camilo Peralta
