Utility, Excess, Value, Waste
A real CFP this time. Please forward freely.
CRITICAL SENSE: A JOURNAL OF POLITICAL AND CULTURAL THEORY
CALL FOR PAPERS SPRING 2006
Utility, Excess, Value, Waste:
Interrogating the Productive and the Unproductive
The difference between the productive and the unproductive vexes us in the most banal and daily ways: we use these terms to categorize not only our work, but also our social exchanges, our affective states, our political activities, our time itself. We do not merely “do” productive or unproductive things, we _feel_ productive or unproductive. We unconsciously attach a normative value to these descriptions of our daily activity and labor, attributing goodness, usefulness and meaning to productivity, and waste, laxity, and luxury to that which is unproductive.
For this special issue of Critical Sense we are interested in a variety of approaches to these concepts: work that rethinks productivity and its attending terms within the discourse of economy; work that translates the categories of the productive and the unproductive into other discursive contexts; and work that is critical of the concepts themselves. If these terms trace their origin to classic political economy–in which they may claim to be structural or descriptive rather than normative–they have become equally important to (and the objects of critique within) a range of other fields and discourses. We welcome a wide range of submissions that deal with this topic.
Questions or issues that might be relevant include:
* Productivity of the “symbolic work� of marketing and branding; role
of affective labor in production
* Feminist/gender theory critiques of the concepts of the productive and
unproductive; role of reproduction at the level of the family as well
as within ideological forms
* Adequacy or inadequacy of these terms to pre-colonial, colonial, or
neocolonial slavery and slave labor
* The value of the unproductive, that which cannot find equivalent,
which cannot produce economic value or be thought in its terms, that
which is excessive or beyond measure: the lazy, the ineffectual,
resistance and refusal
* “Non-productive� (and, indeed, non-economic) economies of gift and
sacrifice
* Relevance to the aesthetics of decadence, excess, or immoderation
* Relevance to/role within libidinal economies; productivity or
unproductiveness of drives, desires, repressive labor
* Relevance of productivity to the epistemological, cognitive, or
philosophical
* Productivity in politics: examining cults of efficiency or critiques
of mass or elite politics invoking the notions of efficiency,
expediency, waste, and/or unproductive activity
We also welcome book reviews on any topic within the orbit of political and cultural theory, whether related or unrelated to the issue’s theme. Papers should be no more than 30 pages; reviews, no more than 10. All submissions are due by JANUARY 31st, 2006 electronically to
criticalsense@lists.berkeley.edu.
Critical Sense is located online at http://criticalsense.berkeley.edu/.
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interestingly, i have been working on a paper on this very (or very similar) subject. Interrogating the “productive” specifically in terms of work and the idea of the unworking of work in the community - a la Jean-Luc Nancy - and the potential revolutionary implications of an unworked revolution.
As well, I am working on a dissertation regarding the production of oil, capitalism and Kristeva’s theory of abjection.
We’ll see how these “works” go by the 31st of January, 2006.
i’ll post this CFP far and wide, if you don’t mind.
Comment by elise @ 12/1/2005 8:04 pm
Those papers look great. Please do submit something - it doesn’t have to be totally polished, as you can revise the paper later. Also, distributing the CFP would be very handy.
Comment by Tim @ 12/2/2005 2:36 pm
hi Tim,
That sounds great. I wish I had time to write something. Maybe I’ll try over the xmas holiday. I hope you’re well.
all the best,
Nate
Comment by Nate @ 12/2/2005 6:54 pm