Call for Papers: Atrocity, Outrage and the Everyday (JMB 3.3)

So much to do today:
kill memory, kill pain,
turn heart into a stone,
and yet prepare to live again.
-- Anna Akhmatova

Journal of Mundane Behavior is requesting submissions for a special section on Atrocity, Outrage and the Everyday. In its many manifestations - trauma, terror, horror and pain - atrocity permeates our everyday lives, while remaining something we assumes happens far away, and to other people. Yet our world and our lives seem increasingly prone to events that cry for outrage, from the global pandemic of AIDS, to international and local terrorism, to morally justified actions against poverty and famine. We live in a time in which the connected world makes the awareness of such tragic events easy to achieve - and easy to avoid. And our daily lives can be ones in which atrocity -- and the sense of outrage that it provokes -- can be key motivations for action or something to hide behind.

For this section, which will appear in JMB's October 2002 issue, we pose these general questions: How does atrocity affect our everyday lives? What forms do trauma, terror, horror and pain take in the mundane aspects of our existence? What role does outrage play in defining our selves, our neighbors, and our era? How do we deal in our daily lives with the tensions between atrocity and accident, outrage and apathy, knowledge and ignorance? And what do we do to prevent atrocities from determining our future?

More specific issues that articles could potentially address, either in the context of particular events or phenomena or as general ideas, include (though are not limited to):

- where and how the presence (or absence) of outrage manifests itself as we shop, travel, daydream about the future, or relax in front of the evening news or distraction television;

- what happens to our everyday lives when they are touched - literally or figuratively - by atrocity;

- the role of memory, imagination and fantasy in how we deal with atrocity and outrage;

- the social, ethical, political, and philosophical implications of imagining our daily lives as affected by or perpetuating the kinds of events that generate atrocities;

- the collective construction of what counts as an atrocity and what constitutes an outraged response.

For this special section, JMB is looking for critical analyses, essays, photographs and creative writing on atrocity, outrage and the everyday. All submissions are welcome, but we especially encourage analyses of the interrelation of atrocity, outrage and the everyday, and the ethical and political implications of these interrelations. Essays must be thoughtful and contemplative and accessible to a wide range of readers. Contributors should consult JMB's submission guidelines as well as previously published articles for matters of style and substance.

Contributions should be submitted for review no later than August 1/2002 and must be submitted as Microsoft Word attachments via email. Please send contributions to the section editor, Naomi Mandel, at mandel@uri.edu.

For a printable PDF version of this announcement (Acrobat Reader 4.0 required), click here.