CFP: "Italian Critical Theory" and political theology

The journal "Annali d'Italianistica" – based at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – seeks essays for a special issue on "Italian Critical Theory" (including political theology) to be published in fall 2011.

www.ibiblio.org/annali/upcoming.html

Twenty-one years ago, the publication of Giovanna Borradori's anthology Recoding Metaphysics (1988) and of Gianni Vattimo's The End of Modernity (1988) signaled that the post-war generation of Italian philosophers was ready to join the theoretical debate that was going on in the English-speaking world.

The translation of other works by Vattimo generated an interest that went way beyond the boundaries of Italian Studies. A few years later, the English publication of Giorgio Agamben's The Coming Community (1993), immediately followed by other volumes, made the Italian philosopher a household name in comparative literature departments and continental philosophy programs. The philosophical geography of the North-American universities was indeed opening up to new territories.

The appearance of Carlo Sini's Images of Truth (1993), Massimo Cacciari's Necessary Angel (1994), Mario Perniola's Enigmas (1995), Adriana Cavarero's In Spite of Plato (1995), Antonio Negri's Marx Beyond Marx (1996) – not to mention the books of the same authors that came after, culminating in the best-selling status of Antonio Negri's and Michael Hardt's Empire, 2001 – made clear that contemporary Italian philosophy was now a strong presence in the post-modern theoretical landscape of the American and British universities. Recently, Brian Schroeder's and Silvia Benso's anthology Contemporary Italian Philosophy (2007) has charted an exceptionally varied land, whose richness is second to none in terms of theoretical ambition and hermeneutical subtlety.

Seeking to situate itself within this theoretical context, the 2011 "Annali d'Italianistica" volume intends to address the relevance of Italian critical theory today. It will be divided in two parts. The first section will include invited papers only. Some of the most prominent Italian philosophers have been invited to contribute and they have all accepted the invitation. The second section will be open to the contributions of scholars who wish to engage in this theoretical debate and will answer this call for papers.

As a mere suggestion, submissions may be organized around keywords such as aesthetics, bioethics, biopolitics, cognitive approaches, deconstructionism, difference and identity, existentialism and phenomenology, feminism, geopolitics, genealogy, gender, GLBTQ studies, elites and multitudes, Europe and Empire, grammatology, hermeneutics, humanism and anti-humanism, Idealism and its legacy, metaphysics and its destiny, Marxism and post-Marxism, modernity and post-modernity, North/South dichotomy, otherness and sameness, philosophy and religion, political theology, traveling theories, semiotics, style and the philosophical discourse.

In additional to the theorists who have already been mentioned, "Annali d'Italianistica" will welcome papers on other relevant figures of the Italian thought in the last sixty years.

As "Annali d'Italianistica" intends to make Italian critical theory available to the English speaking world, all contributions will be in English. All contributions will be refereed. Essays, not to exceed twenty-five double-spaced pages, should conform to the MLA style, as set forth under "Norms for Contributors" on the "Annali d'Italianistica" website.

Deadline for submissions: 30 September 2010

Prospective contributors should address all inquiries to Alessandro Carrera (Department of Modern and Classical Languages, University of Houston): acarrera@uh.edu