Call for Papers: Special Issue, The Comparatist

Topic: Failure

General Editor: Zahi Zalloua (Whitman College)

We welcome contributions that examine the notion of failure in comparative studies and literary theory. There seems to be no shortage of failures in our contemporary moment: the failures to protect reproductive rights, stop genocide, confront climate change, and combat a global rise in fascism name only a few. To what do we attribute failures and their proliferation? Is Walter Benjamin’s dictum “Behind every fascism there is a failed revolution” a rallying cry for the seemingly debilitated Left? Against opportunists who frame failure as a lesson in compromise (you’re demanding too much; you better move to the center, and so on), might we be better served in following instead Samuel Beckett’s memorable words, “Try again, fail again, fail better”? With an eye for its many variations, this volume will consider failure’s ubiquitous presence in our historical consciousness and the contemporary world. Topics of interest could include:

The genocidal war in Gaza

Failure and human rights discourse

Failure and the Enlightenment

Failed states

The normalization of fascism

Pessimism

Hopelessness

The movement for Black lives

Global capitalism

Land back movements

Post-Roe

International law and its discontents

Historical failures

The dialectics of failure and success

Responses to failure

Spectacular failures

Failed revolutions

Solidarity

Interested contributors should submit a 1-page abstract by April 1, 2025 to zallouz@whitman.edu. Deadline for completed articles will be December 1, 2025.