Call for Papers Iraq: Between the Present and the Future Themed issue of the Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication Themed Issue Editor: Lina Khatib (Stanford University) Papers are solicited for a themed issue of the Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication on “Iraq: Between the Present and the Future”. The purpose of this themed issue is to tease out the cultural, intellectual, artistic, social, and political dynamics in Iraq today and the future vision for those dynamics. The issue aims to understand the challenges and prospects facing Iraq’s present and future on those fronts, while seeking to ground this understanding in an analytical reflection on Iraq’s recent history. Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the country has been invariably seen as a victim of Western imperialist aggression, as a prospective democratic state in the making, as the homeland of traumatized peoples on the verge of a civil war, and as a hub of transnational terrorist activities. Discourse on Iraq has been mostly consumed with security issues, hard politics, and economic issues. Literature on how those elements have impacted people’s everyday lives, Iraq’s artistic scene, its cultural milieus and its intellectual arenas deserves to be expanded. Within this framework, this themed issue seeks answers to questions such as: - How have Iraqis co-opted, dissented, and/or resisted Iraq’s political, economic, social and security challenges in their everyday lives? - How has this been mediated in Iraqi art, films, media, and other communication and cultural arenas? - How are ethnic and sectarian tensions being handled in the public sphere and in everyday life and what are the developments in this respect that are being overlooked but which deserve attention? - How can Iraq recover from the trauma of destruction of much of its material culture? - How is Iraq dealing with a traumatic memory that intersects with a traumatic present? - What role have Iraqi (and Arab) intellectuals played in the formation of Iraq’s present? - What is the position of artists, journalists, educators and activists towards the challenges facing Iraq today and what is their vision for its future? - What are the main spaces for dialogue emerging in Iraq that may play a role in shaping a brighter future for the country? - What are the cultural practices through which power is expressed? - How and where is politics performed on the level of the everyday? Scholars from a wide variety of disciplines including geography, international relations, media and communication studies, cultural studies, memory studies, gender studies, sociology, history, anthropology, archaeology, and politics are invited to present innovative responses to those questions in the form of full length articles, shorter reflective essays and critical reviews. Deadline for submission of proposals: 15 May 2010. Notification of acceptance of proposals: 30 May 2010. Deadline for submission of manuscripts for accepted proposals: 1 November 2010. Expected publication date of accepted articles: May 2011. Proposals for articles and reflective essays should be about 500-600 in length. They must clearly describe the proposed approach, and explain the contribution that would be made to the themed issue. Articles should be 6000-7000 words long and include an abstract of not more than 150 words that clearly defines the nature of the article. Reflective essays should be 1500-3000 words and reviews 1000-1500 words. Up to five keywords should be included to identify articles and reflective essays. Please email the proposal to Dr Lina Khatib, co-editor of Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication: lkhatib@stanford.edu Please note that all articles will be subject to our peer review process and that the Editors retain the discretion at all stages of the publication process to accept or reject an article. MEJCC is a peer-reviewed journal published by Brill: http://www.brill.nl/mjcc Dr. Lina Khatib Program Manager Program on Good Governance and Political Reform in the Arab World Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law Stanford University http://cddrl.stanford.edu/people/linakhatib/