CALL FOR ABSTRACTS (VOL.3/2023)

The editors of Athena. Critical Inquiries in Law, Philosophy and Globalization invite submissions for the forthcoming issue on the topic of Disagreement, Free Speech, and Cancel Culture. Manuscripts from researchers of all disciplinary areas whose work addresses the political, philosophical and legal aspects arising from this topic will be welcome.

 

Description

Some believe that the increasing centrality of social justice and inclusion issues in public debate in liberal democracies is not matched by increasing freedom to actually discuss these issues.

On 7 July 2020, for instance, 150 intellectuals and academics – e.g. Noam Chomsky, Steven Pinker and Francis Fukuyama – signed an open letter denouncing the climate of dogmatic censorship and intolerance that has affected the public arena in recent years. The signatories of the appeal complain about ostracism exercised by those cultural and political circles from which one would expect a greater openness to diversity, i.e., left-wing circles or more generally of liberal persuasion. One of the central points raised by the petitioners is that the opinions that would fall under this censorship would not be those that are actually subversive, but rather those that counter the prevailing cultural and social thought.

Although there is no explicit reference in the text of the letter, the set of practices characterized by this censorious attitude are often grouped in the mainstream debate under the notion of ‘cancel culture’: “[…] collective strategies by activists using social pressures to achieve cultural ostracism of targets (someone or something) accused of offensive words or deeds”. Typically, topics of interest include identity, inequality, fairness, and discrimination, emphasising gender, ethnicity, or social class issues.

The expression 'cancel culture' became popular also thanks to social justice movements such as BlackLivesMatter and MeToo; and it is often associated with a certain kind of political rhetoric that has been often called 'wokeness' over the years. Both 'wokeness' and ‘cancellation’ are linked to collectivised demands for greater responsibility on the part of social systems that have long failed marginalised people and communities.

In this context, practices of censorship, often carried out thanks to social media, are not so new: “Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes.” These are certainly not legal sanctions, but rather forms of social pressure, which very often turn into shaming or boycotts aimed at repressing, more or less indirectly, behaviour considered offensive.

The appeal by the 150 American intellectuals is probably the strongest stance taken so far in the debate on cancel culture and reveals the annoyance that a certain milieu feels towards cultural and political attitudes viewed as excessively moralistic or overprotective of the sensibilities of certain social groups. These attitudes would hinder dialogue and, ultimately, freedom of speech. Hence, critics of cancel culture call for an environment conducive to substantive debate between competing positions, even at the risk of wounding the sensitivities of groups or individuals.

As much as this seems like the classic topic of freedom of speech and its boundaries, it brings new aspects that require further investigation into the debate. We think addressing these new profiles from a multidisciplinary perspective would be beneficial.

Questions that this issue aims to address include, but are not limited to, the following:

• What are the historical roots of cancel culture and which socio-political variables is it influenced by?
• Is cancel culture an actual phenomenon or is there an instrumental use of this notion?
• Is cancel culture a kind of censorship or is it instead a legitimate form of public critique?
• Are practices of cancel culture fair and effective tools for curbing offensive behaviour?
• Can historical research denouncing the horrors of the past, e.g. colonialism, become a dogmatic barrier to freedom of expression?
• Cancel culture, justice and the rule of law
• Is cancel culture consistent with liberalism and free speech? What influence does the variation of the concepts of liberal and illiberal in different constitutional and cultural contexts have on the perception of cancel culture?
• Is cancel culture a form of populism?
• Free speech on social networks: e.g., what role does the monopoly of social media platforms play?
• What are the limits of freedom of speech in pluralist societies? Are they effectively identified by cancel culture?
• What role should sensitivity play in the public debate for certain social groups?
• If any, are there repercussions on the law given by cancel culture, e.g., on criminal justice?
• Cancel culture, research and academia

Deadlines and selection process

Abstracts should not exceed 500 words in length and shall be submitted by April 30th, 2022 to the Editorial Office: athena@unibo.it (please insert luigi.sammartino2@unibo.it and francesco.cavinato2@unibo.it in cc).

Abstracts will first be evaluated by the Editorial Board who will notify acceptance to authors by May 15th ,2022; the whole manuscripts shall be submitted to the Editorial Office by October 15th,  2022 for the double-blind peer review process. Each paper should not be longer than 15000 words and 90000 characters and it shall be complied with the Authors Guidelines .

Selected papers will be published in Volume 3 (expected 2023).

For any inquiries, please contact the Editorial Office at athena@unibo.it.