Call for Abstracts
Special Issue on
“Karl Marx and the Language Sciences: critical encounters”
To be published in Language Sciences, May 2018
We announce an initial Call for Abstracts for a 2018 Special Issue of Language Sciences on “Karl Marx and the Language Sciences: critical encounters.”
Special Issue guest editor: Peter E Jones (Sheffield Hallam University).
Karl Marx (1818-1883) is one of the most influential philosophers and political thinkers of the past two centuries. His political writings have decisively shaped the modern world, contributing to the development of working class organization and inspiring and informing socialist, communist and national liberation movements internationally. At the same time, Marx’s revolutionary philosophical and scientific work has had an incalculable impact on intellectual culture and, for many, retains its relevance for the understanding and progressive transformation of social life.
This Special Issue sets out to critically examine the inter-relations between Marx’s thinking and contemporary research in language (including the philosophy of language) and communication. Individual papers may aim to survey broad currents or trends of thought in the language sciences from this perspective or to focus more narrowly on particular topics or the work of particular scholars. However, all papers should set out to demonstrate how such a critical engagement with Marx can be productive in contributing to both our understanding of Marx and Marxist theoryand to research in the language sciences.
Accordingly, we welcome papers which address the following topics:
- the relevance of Marx to the language sciences today;
- the historical influence of Marx’s thinking on developments in the language sciences and allied disciplines (e.g., psychology);
- Marx’s own views on language and communication and the role of these views in the development of his thinking and on subsequent Marxist theorising;
- the Influence on Marx’s own thinking of contemporary perspectives on language and communication;
- the relationship of Marx’s work to one or more present day traditions and approaches in language and communication research (e.g., Critical Discourse Analysis, Dialogism, Ethnomethodology, etc.);
- critical examination of the linguistic and communicational ideas of particular scholars or collectives who self-identify as Marxist or are commonly associated with Marxist tradition (e,g, Vygotsky, Voloshinov, the Bakhtin circle, Gramsci, etc.);
- critical re-examination of Marx’s key theoretical concepts from a present day language sciences perspective (e.g, value, commodity fetishism,class struggle,alienation, etc.).
Word limit for abstracts: 150-200 words.
PLEASE NOTE: At this initial stage we are inviting ABSTRACTS ONLY. Abstracts will be reviewed by Editor and Guest Editor. Selected contributors will then be invited to submit a full article for review.
Important dates:
Deadline for abstract submission: 1st May 2017
Decision on invitation for full article submission: 1st June 2017
Deadline for first draft of articles: 1st December 2017
Deadline for final version of articles: 15th March 2018
Publication date: 5 May 2018
Article abstracts should be sent to Peter E Jones: P.E.Jones@shu.ac.uk
