Habits: Special issue of The Comparatist
Call for Papers: Special Issue, The Comparatist
Topic: Habits
General Editor: Zahi Zalloua (Whitman College)
We welcome contributions that examine the notion of habit in comparative studies and literary theory. Habit has gotten bad press from modern philosophers and theorists. It is frequently set in opposition to what is called the event—or the Real, in a Lacanian register. Habits are aligned with ideology and the symbolic order, whereas the event lines up with ethics, with an "ethics of the Real." Habits constitute our lifeless or quasi-mechanistic horizon, whereas the event punctures the psychic shield that such a horizon presumably affords. But is this really an adequate account of habit? Are habits a priori morally and politically suspect? Aren't habits hermeneutically more complex and messy? Do we need to rethink the relation between habits and the event? How does literature bear witness to the reality and persistence of habits? What do habits tell us about the workings of subjectivity? Can, or should, we rehabilitate habits? Topics of interest could include:
Habits and habitus
Queering habits
Ethics of the Real
The Event
Norms of readability
Customs and ideology
Political resistance
Affect theory and the body
Interested contributors should submit a 1-page abstract by April 1, 2015 to zallouz@whitman.edu. Deadline for completed articles will be December 1, 2016.