International Center for Cultural Studies

CALL FOR PAPER｜Conflict, Justice, Decolonization: Asia in Transition in the 21st Century

2025-05-17

CALL FOR PAPER

Conflict, Justice, Decolonization: Asia in Transition in the 21st Century

https://cjdproject.web.nycu.edu.tw/
ISSN: 2709-5479 (digital) / 2709-7943 (print)

Violence in Times of Polycrisis | 多重危機時代的暴力

As peace agreements across war zones remain elusive, violence - a fundamental force shaping war regimes, state apparatuses, terrorism, crime, racism, discrimination, abuse, and all aspects of power relations - unfolds itself in an extremely brutal way. From the histories and ongoing realities of colonialism, imperialism, military occupation, and economic sanctions to the construction of nation-states and emerging social orders, violence is never absent—it is embedded in the very core of power structures. It operates through systematic, symbolic, material, and perceptible means but can also take fragmented, imagined, intangible, or apathetic forms.

We are living in an era of polycrisis, a term invoked by historian Adam Tooze to describe the compounding effects of simultaneous crises—war threats, financial instability, pandemics, refugee displacement, and climate change—each amplifying risks and uncertainties, ultimately undermining the prospects for global peace. In this context, the value of human life is partitioned according to its capacity to be considered “grievable” (Butler, 2009), a notion that reflects our propensity to mourn human deaths. “Ungrievability” is shaped by media narratives that depict certain individuals or populations solely as threats rather than as lives inherently worthy of protection.

As the world undergoes dramatic transformations, different political narratives attempt to define its trajectory through evolving visual or verbal languages and new technologies of (mis)information. Whether through the Trump administration’s MAGA doctrine (“Make America Great Again”), a “distributed world” in the view of Vladimir Putin’s regime (Valdai Discussion Club, 2022), or the idea of a “multipolar world” shaped by middle powers amid geopolitical tensions (Rodrik, 2024), it is evident that intersecting crises are reshaping global structures—or even multiple, divergent worlds, if we accept that deep-seated inequalities continue to fracture societies.

We invite young scholars to contribute to the exploration of “Violence in Times of Polycrisis” by submitting papers to the CJD project. This initiative aims to examine the evolution and transformation of violence within the context of polycrisis. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

Theories and new perspectives on violence
Violence within geopolitical tensions and wars
Violence and racism
War and gender/sexual violence
Representations of violence in media, literature, art, cinema etc.
Reproduction and perpetuation of violence
Domestic violence
Actions and activism against violence
(Non)-Violence as a means of resistance
Language as violence
Violence and technology
Epistemic and institutional violence
The role of the law in mitigating or perpetrating violence

We invite you all to submit an abstract (300-400 words in English, 450-600 characters in Mandarin) at the following Application Form: https://forms.gle/8d5J1fVXC5cy5V2t9

The deadline for abstract submission is May 1, 2025.

Articles should be 2,000 - 3,000 words if written in English and 3,000 - 4,500 characters if written in Mandarin Chinese. We accept scholarly articles, conference reviews, interviews, photo essays, video essays, and book and film reviews. We welcome both single-authored and co-authored manuscripts.

How to Apply

Please note that a full-text article is not required to complete the application. Please read Submission Guidelines available at https://cjdproject.web.nycu.edu.tw/submission-guidelines/

Selected articles will be published on the CJD website (ISSN: 2709-5479) and in a special issue of our booklet (ISSN: 2709-7943). Authors of selected articles with a Taiwanese post office bank account will be awarded 4,000 NTD per article.

For more information or any questions, please visit https://cjdproject.web.nycu.edu.tw/or contact us at iccs.cjdproject@gmail.com。

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Reference
Butler, Judith. 2009. Frames of war: When is life grievable? Verso.
Rodrik, Dani. 11 Nov 2024. Middle Powers Will Make A Multipolar World. Project Syndicate.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/middle-powers-means-multipolar-world-not-us-hegemony-or-us-china-bipolarity-by-dani-rodrik-2024-11/
Valdai Discussion Club. 24 Oct 2022. A World Without Superpowers.
https://valdaiclub.com/a/reports/a-world-without-superpowers/