[Air-L] Call for Papers: Chaos (Excursions Journal)

[Louise Elali]

Call for Papers - Excursions 10.2: Chaos

"There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence,
no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how
civilizations heal. I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it
is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to
succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that
can lead to knowledge — even wisdom." (Toni Morrison, The Nation, 2015)

Classical and early modern philosophy widely privileged the “logos” i.e.
the logical, organized view of the universe, which still has considerable
influence on the popular as well as the scientific perception of the world
through the binary “order vs. disorder.” However, modern scholarship has
long ago destabilized this false dichotomy, and chaos has captured the
imagination of philosophers, scientists and artists alike for many
generations. Mathematicians proposed a theory of chaos which accounts for
the unpredictable character of deterministic systems; quantum physicists
have established the fundamental uncertainty inherent to the structure of
matter; and postmodernist scholars in the humanities and social sciences
are arguing for the acceptance of the ambiguity, fluidity and fragmentation
of the human condition.

Concurrently, environmental and social disasters, economical and political
crisis, violent and unceasing conflicts inhabit our imaginaries as chaotic
aspects of our daily lives. The climate emergency, the migration crisis,
and the general turmoil of contemporary cities have been framed as chaos.
The demands of an overgrowing market of consumption, the fluctuating
network of algorithms and data, and the fluidity of the line between
private and public can lead to chaos. Likewise, chaos can be found in messy
teenagers’ bedrooms, non-linear thought processes, and even your own set of
chaotic data.

Within this scenario, Excursions invites researchers to embrace chaos and
investigate the complexities of society, nature, science and being human.
Is chaos a natural, universal phenomenon of "disorder" or a
perspective-bound construct? What meanings and functions can we attribute
to chaos in theory and practice? How can chaos aid contemporary scholarship
in its quest to understand the complexity of our lived experience?

In this issue, Excursions seeks to assemble a collection of articles that
reflect on the concept of chaos, whether as a natural phenomenon in an
objective reality or as a socially-constructed subjective phenomenon.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Chaos as a metaphysical concept or theory
- Chaos as a process in the biological, physical and social world
- Chaos as a theme in popular culture and political discourse
- Chaos as fuel to incite change
- Chaos as a source of creativity
- Chaos as constructed by ideology and epistemology
- Chaos as part of a research method

Please submit your paper by 17 February 2020 via our website:
https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/. If you have trouble with our
submission system, please email us at enquiries at excursions-journal.org.uk

Manuscripts should be no longer than 5,000 words, with citations and
bibliography in Harvard style. More information about Author Guidelines can
be found here. Alongside traditional academic articles, we also consider
alternative ways of communicating research (please contact the editorial
staff prior to submission). We encourage submission as soon as possible, as
we accept and publish articles on a rolling basis.