darkmatter Journal – http://www.darkmatter101.org/
Special Issue – Call for Papers: Post-racial Imaginaries
Increasing reference to the notion of ‘post-race’ is suggestive of an emergent discursive framework in critical approaches to race and racism. ‘Post-race’, ‘post-racial’, ‘post-black’, and associated ideas, are being mobilized in various theoretical, cultural and political discourses to describe new racial formations. Post-race requires us to question in new ways the precepts of race thinking, positing the end of race as a point with which to think racial futures. The imprecise nature of much ‘post-’ talk means there has yet to be a rigorous assessment of the significance of post-race and its cognate terms, beyond simple endorsement or dismissal.
This special issue of darkmatter Journal is interested in delineating the contours of the ‘post-racial’ turn by asking: what is the post-racial? What are the conditions of its emergence? What assumptions and claims does it make about the logics of racism? What critical and political work is the term doing? What does the ‘post’ in post-race mean? How is racism theorized in post-race? What is the relationship between colonial history and the post-racial? When and where is the post-racial? Who claims post-raciality?
Given the multiple registers of post-race talk, these fundamental questions might be addressed in relation to:
- The shifts from race to ethnicity, cultural difference and multiculturalism;
- The ontology and epistemology of race;
- Obama and the politics of anti-racism;
- Utopia and the end of racism;
- Modernity, history, nation and racial memory;
- After whiteness;
- Feminism, sexual politics and multiraciality;
- Neoliberalism, Marxism and class politics;
- Globalism, Orientalism, anti/post/de-colonialism;
- Post-black aesthetics, popular culture and politics;
- Digitalization, bio-technologies, genetic engineering and racial mutations
Submissions: between 1,500 – 8,000 words are welcome, as are alternative formats such as commentaries, reviews, audio, visual and digital contributions. Please email a 400 – 500 word abstract to submit@darkmatter101.org
Please note: submissions to darkmatter are now subject to external peer review. If your contribution is intended for the less formal (and non-peer reviewed) ‘commons’ section, indicate this on your submission.
For further inquiries about the ‘Post-racial Imaginaries’ special issue, email: editors@darkmatter101.org
Deadline for Abstracts: 1st Feb 2011
Deadline for Articles: 1st Sept 2011
Publication date: Dec 2011
