CfP & Guidelines

Call for Papers

dePICTions volume 4

Victimhood

Curating Editor: Carlo Salzani

Victimhood is a common response to trauma. It entails not only a negative experience or a harmful event, but also the perception that the suffered harm is undeserved, unjust, immoral, and, moreover, cannot be prevented by the victim. A sense of victimhood can undermine assumptions about the world as a just and reasonable place, and can give rise to a need for empathy, understanding, reconciliation, or redress.

Any compassion received by victims, however, can reduce them to passivity and weakness, robbing them of their agency, dignity, and self-respect. Victimhood, ultimately, is a condition hierarchically marked (as inferior), and is often resisted by “victims” and their advocates. On the other hand, the claim to compassion and attention can also work as a strategy to avoid responsibility and criticism, producing what has been called “victim mentality.” Sociologists Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning have even argued that Western societies are witnessing the rise of a “victimhood culture” that replaces traditional cultures based on honor and dignity, incentivizing individuals to publicize grievances and even make victimhood a central part of their identity.

We call for contributions that tackle the issue of victimhood in one of its myriad conceptual, historical, and geographical contexts. While we are principally interested in perspectives from the arts, humanities, and social sciences, we are also open to texts from other academic fields (provided that our pool of reviewers enables a fair assessment).

We are looking for articles (3500-7000 words) by authors who understand themselves as public intellectuals. As such, articles should (a) reflect the current state of research, (b) have a distinct, critical point of view, and (c) present the issues in a way that is accessible not just to scholars, but also to a broader public interested in critical thinking.

We are further looking for book reviews (max. 2000 words), interviews (open word count), and literary/artistic pieces (open word count) that relate to the theme of victimhood. Reviews of older books are welcome as long as they (a) are original and previously unpublished, (b) take the volume’s historical context under consideration, and (c) contribute a critical and contemporary view to the debate.

Please consult and follow the dePICTions Submission Guidelines prior to submission.

dePICTions welcomes unsolicited articles as well as those written by special invitation.

Submission deadline: 15 January 2024

Publication date: Spring/Summer 2024

Queries and submissions: depictions@parisinstitute.org

All submissions should include (in this order):

  1. Title
  2. Full name(s) of the author(s)
  3. Abstract (max. 100 words)
  4. Biographical note (max. 50 words)
  5. E-mail address (this will be published; if you would like to use a different address for correspondence with the editors, please indicate this.)
  6. Text (formatted according to the stylesheet)
  • Text should be single-spaced and unjustified.
  • Fonts should be standard (Times New Roman, Calibri, etc.), font size 12pt.
  • Files should be submitted in *.doc or *.docx formats.
  • Please do not use automatically formatted headings, spaces before or after text, or indents (apart from block quotes).
  • Paragraphs should be separated by a single blank line.
  • Main and section titles should be bold.
  • In the main and section titles, please capitalize nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Please do not capitalize prepositions (if shorter than 6 letters), articles, and conjunctions.
  • Italics should only be used for non-English words and the titles of stand-alone works (books, films, etc.).
  • Please distinguish between hyphen ( – to separate parts of a word and between numbers) and em dash ( — to separate parts of a sentence, with no space on either side).
  • Acronyms should be written in all caps, whether spoken as letters (e.g., USA) or words (e.g., COVID).
  • Please do not use the possessive “s” after a word ending in “s” (e.g., do not use Dennis’s; use Dennis’ instead).
  • Please capitalize conceptual usages of regular vocabulary (e.g., “West” and “Western” to refer to a cultural concept rather than a compass direction).
  • Please use the serial comma (e.g., “Jane, John, and Jake went to the supermarket.”).
  • Direct quotes should be placed in double quotation marks. Use single quotation marks for quotes within quotes.
  • Unless they are part of the original quotation, please place colons, semicolons, question marks, and exclamation marks outside quotation marks. In contrast, commas and periods should be inside quotation marks whether part of the original or added by the quoting author.
  • Quotes that are longer than 3 lines should be formatted as block quotes and indented 1 cm from the left.
  • Any additions to or omissions from a quote should be marked by square brackets, e.g., “[…]”.
  • Double quotation marks may be used as scare quotes to emphasize a word, but this should be done sparingly.
  • All bibliographical information should be included in endnotes that follow direct or indirect quotations.
  • Endnotes should come after all punctuation except the dash; they should also come after, not inside, quotation marks.
  • Please use automatically generated endnotes with Arabic numerals.
  • When formatting bibliographical references, please do not use an automated reference system but follow the guidelines below.
  • For repeated references to the same text, use a short form (last name of author, abbreviated title [max. first three words], page number; e.g., “Streeck, Buying Time, 35.”).
  • Please do not include two-letter US state abbreviations (e.g., Stanford, CA or Cambridge, MA) in references.
  • Please do not use “ibid.”, “f.”, or “ff.”.
  • Explanatory endnotes should be used sparingly.

Monographs

  • First Name Surname, Title: Subtitle, translated by First Name Surname, edition, Place of publication: Publisher, year of publication, page.
    • Example: Wolfgang Streeck, Buying Time: The Delayed Crisis of Democratic Capitalism, translated by Patrick Camiller, New York: Verso, 2014, 7-8.

Chapters in edited volumes

  • First Name Surname, “Chapter Title: Subtitle,” in First Name Surname/First Name Surname (eds.), Title: Subtitle, Place of publication: Publisher, year of publication, page range of chapter, here precise page from which quotation is taken.
    • Example: Carlo Salzani, “Walter Benjamin,” in Adam Kotsko and Carlo Salzani (eds.), Agamben’s Philosophical Lineage, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017, 27-38, here 35.

Journal articles

  • First Name Surname, “Article Title: Subtitle,” Journal Title, volume.issue (year), page range of article, here precise page from which quotation is taken.
  • If a doi (digital object identifier) is needed, please add after a comma at the end.
    • Example: Julia Kristeva, “Stabat Mater,” Poetics Today, 6.1/2 (1985), 133–152, here 134.

Websites

  • First Name Surname or Name of Webpage, “Title: Subtitle,” Name of Webpage, date of publication or last update, at URL [access date].
  • Adapt this sample based on the information available, but always include the name of the webpage, URL, and access date.
    • Example: Ross Douthat, “Is the Religious Right Privileged?,” The New York Times, 18 June 2019, at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/18/opinion/religion-race-liberalism.html [26 June 2019].

Engineering, medicine, applied sciences

  • Alternative citation guidelines for articles in engineering, medicine, the applied sciences, and similar fields are accepted (e.g., listing of multiple author names).
  • Interviews should be preceded by a brief introductory text; no abstract is necessary.
  • The first question and answer should be preceded by the full names of interviewer and interviewee; thereafter, initials are used (e.g., “Jane Smith” for the first question/answer; “JS” for the second and onwards).
  • All interview questions should be in bold.
  • Please mark the space between an answer and the next question with a blank.