Post–Critical IR?

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EISA 2018 Prague | Call for Papers & Panels

Convenors:
Jonathan Luke Austin (Graduate Institute, Geneva)
Anna Leander (CBS, Copenhagen, PUC-Rio, IHEID)

Deadline: 01.02.2018
Submit: eisapec18.org

Many students of IR want to change the world. And this is particularly true for those who take a ‘critical’ approach to the field. There is too much bad in the world. And too little knowledge of how to stop it. Nonetheless, there are few sustained reflections on how critical scholars might change the world. Few texts explicitly connecting the critical promise into critical action; on converting critical theory into praxis or critical problem-solving. Post-Critical IR seeks contributions that do just that.

The section grounds itself by following other fields with strong critical traditions – feminism, postcolonial theory, etc. – in calling for an interrogative ‘post-critical’ turn in IR that asks not what comes after but what might come with critique for it to be more effective in its daily praxis. The prefix post is used here with the same inflection post-colonial scholars give it: not to suggest we are beyond critique (or colonialism, structural oppression, etc.) but that we have reached a situation in which something markedly novel must be added to critique and that discovering this ‘something’ requires sustained theoretical, methodological, and empirical reflection within IR.

In particular, we invite three types of contributions to this section:

● Theories of post-critique within IR.
What theoretical coordinates might orient a ‘post-critical’ stance towards studying world politics? How can we learn from other fields here? What would it mean to think post-critically about the world?

● Fractures underlying the status of critique within IR.
What is undermining the status of critical approaches to the social sciences? Socially, politically, and intellectually? To what degree are critical IR scholars themselves self-implicated in this demise? And how can they reverse it?

● Practices of post-critique within IR.
What might we do – practically speaking – differently by embracing the horizons of a post-critical IR? How might our scholarly practices shift? How might our engagement with the world change?

Contributors are asked to be creative in interpreting these three possible themes as they wish, and in intertwining them as far as is possible. We invite both full panel and individual paper submissions for the section. Any queries should be directed at jonathan.austin@graduateinstitute.ch and further details are available at http://www.post-critical.com.

Details

Venue:
University of Economics (VSE) and Institute of International Relations (IIR), Prague
Dates:
September 12-15, 2018
Conference Theme:
‘A New Hope’: Back to The Future of International Relations
Section Title:
Post-Critical IR? Hope for Changing the World Political (S38)
Closing date for submissions:
February 1, 2018