[spectre] Book publication | The Aesthetics and Politics of Irony | CFA

[Elsa de Freitas Alves]

*CALL FOR ARTICLES*

Book publication

*The Aesthetics and Politics of Irony*

*Organizers*: Elsa Alves (University of Copenhagen / CECC) and Ana Dinger
(CECC, Catholic University of Portugal)

*CFA*: Following on from the 4th Graduate Conference in Culture
Studies, *Irony:
framing (post)modernity*, held in January 2014 at the Catholic University
of Portugal, we would like to prompt a reflection on the problem of irony
in modern and contemporary culture.

After the tragedy of 9/11 in the West and the crisis of socialism in the
East, the overriding ironic tone that had pervaded the 80s and 90s has
begun to withdraw from the aesthetic and socio-political scenes. The last
decades have witnessed an increasing celebration of affects and emotions, a
return of authenticity and the real, and the birth of a “new sincerity”.
This backlash against ironic alienation or “cynical reason” hopes to
replace playfulness, shallowness and negativity for an ethos of commitment,
sensitivity and integrity. Nevertheless, these attempts could easily turn
out to be rhetorical or ironic.

The present book seeks to address, on one hand, the impulse of and the
resistance to irony in today’s artistic, cultural and political discourses
and practices. On the other hand, given that ironic attitudes and
expressions in late modernity are anticipated in German idealism,
constituting as such a Romantic possibility, we welcome reflections on
modern irony at large.

Some of the key questions we wish to tackle are: how does irony become
political? Can it build a community? How does it affirm the subject (e.g.
in post-structuralism)? How does it provide a model of opposition to the
status quo or, instead, how does it neutralize critique? How does it become
an aesthetic principle and what are the strategies that this entails or,
instead, how does it perform deaestheticisation? What kind of relation can
the ironic and the tragic have? Are there historical moments that can be
nominated "ironic" (e.g. post-modernity)? What are the post-ironic
alternatives?

In this volume, Michele Cometa (University of Palermo) will address the
theory of irony in Schlegel and Paul de Man, and its potential for culture
analysis, Jorge Fazenda Lourenço (Catholic University of Portugal) will
analyse irony’s political overtones in Jorge de Sena’s poetry and Philip
Auslander (Georgia Institute of Technology) will discuss irony in the
performative arts.

We invite contributions to be sent to the editors, Elsa Alves & Ana Dinger (
irony2014 at gmail.com), until the 1st of March 2015.


*Submissions guideline*:

Authors are encouraged to write an article specifically for the volume.
However, it is also possible to draw on already published work, adapting
this to address the volume theme.

Articles need to be written in English and language editing is the
responsibility of the authors.

The texts will be selected according to their relevance regarding the goals
set out for the volume, originality of scope and theoretical framing.

Articles will need to be max. 20 pages in length, Times New Roman 12,
including bibliography. For more information see the *style sheet enclosed*.

Please attach a short bio-bibliographical text (c. 150 words).

Deadline for submissions is *1st of March 2015*. The organizers will return
their decision by the *end of April 2015*.



*For further information: *

http://irony2014conference.wordpress.com/

http://cecc.fch.lisboa.ucp.pt/en/
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