"Global Cultures of Antifascism, 1920–2016," a special issue of Fascism. Journal of Comparative Fascist Studies (https://brill.com/view/journals/fasc/fasc-overview.xml).
Guest Editors: Mattie Fitch (Marymount University, US), Michael Ortiz (University of Northern Colorado, US), and Nick Underwood (German Historical Institute West, US)
Editors-in-Chief: Nigel Copsey (Teesside University, UK) & Graham Macklin (University of Oslo, Norway)
This special issue of Fascism. Journal of Comparative Fascist Studies will examine cultural manifestations of antifascism during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Antifascism, like the fascist advance to which it was a response, was a global phenomenon with important national and local specificities. This special issue seeks to move beyond traditional narratives of success and/or failure by examining the ways in which particular cultures (broadly interpreted) shaped various individuals' and groups' understanding of antifascism. Whether or not antifascist movements achieved their political goals in the short-term, antifascism often had a long-reaching effect on cultural politics, political coalitions, and civic participation. Investigating how activists conceptualized antifascism reveals the extent to which it intersected with other key allegiances. It is anticipated that proposals will interrogate how commitments to workers' emancipation, republicanism, transnational Jewishness, or anti-imperialism—to name just a few—influenced antifascist outlooks and vice versa.
Examining antifascism through a cultural lens can best shed light on these questions, as antifascists used cultural practices to forge their antifascist positions and identities. Members of antifascist movements understood cultural activities as a crucial aspect of mobilization against fascism, because of the ability of cultural participation to define a group’s priorities, develop loyalty to the movement’s values, and bring attention to the cause.
The scope of this special issue is intentionally broad in order to encompass articles that traverse both the globe and the century that followed the foundation of fascism. Such an approach will allow scholars to better comprehend how culture affected antifascist movements from the early days in Italy to now, and how antifascism has changed from the interwar period, through the 1960s, to today. It will also illuminate ways antifascism transcended national boundaries or differed in particular national or local contexts. How did war, genocide, colonization, decolonization, and social movements, among other historical forces, influence how antifascists understood and articulated their cultural commitments to fighting fascism wherever it emerged?
Please send a 250-word abstract of your proposed paper to michael.ortiz@unco.eduby September 30, 2018. Decisions will be made by October 15, 2018. If accepted, papers will be due in for peer review by April 2019. This special issue is scheduled for publication in 2020.
All email correspondence should be sent to michael.ortiz@unco.edu
Contact Info:
Nick Underwood
Contact Email:
nicholas.underwood@colorado.edu