Call for Papers: Special Issue, The Comparatist 

Topic: Reason

General Editor: Zahi Zalloua (Whitman College)

We welcome contributions that examine the notion of reason in comparative studies and literary theory. What does reason stand for today? Who desires reason? Is it still too closely aligned with the Enlightenment and Western modernity, with philosophical discourse itself? Can we really do away with reason? Wouldn’t a jettisoning of reason precipitate an intellectual if not global catastrophe? Reason, of course, has generated its own legacy of critiques—of pure reason, dialectical reason, instrumental reason, postcolonial reason, Black reason, and so on. But reason never simply goes away. Reason returns, often reinvigorated, a source for endless invention rather than domination or normalization. With an eye for its many lives, this volume will consider reason’s ongoing challenges and appeal in a capitalist-driven world increasingly devoid of objectivity and collective purpose. Topics of interest could include:

Unreason

Reason and the libidinal economy

Politics and the post-political

Modernity and slavery

The Haitian revolution

Fanonian humanism

Kant and the Public Use of Reason

Neoliberalism and corporate neo-feudalism

Epistemicide

Coloniality

Marxist dialectics

Psychoanalytic reason

New critiques of reason

University-Industrial-Complex

Interested contributors should submit a 1-page abstract by April 1, 2022 to zallouz@whitman.edu. Deadline for completed articles will be December 1, 2022.