Call for papers: Citations

 

Take a moment for a story.

A year ago, I (Cathryn) started writing an essay about spaces which house, host and legitimize citations. What was initiated out of conversations, years of research, and too much time on Twitter, suddenly hit a wall of limitation – it was, after all, incredibly counterintuitive to discuss citational practice within a satellite form like the single-authored essay. In the midst of this unavoidable conundrum, I had a conversation with my colleague Jason^[1], who asked me if I had thought about trying to pitch a special issue on the topic of citations to a journal. I had not; I had just started my first academic position having very recently completed my Phd and felt that I wasn’t established enough to even think about taking on the role of an editor. He encouraged me, told me there was no harm in reaching out to some journals to see what response it might get, and in a tentative agreement I decided to give it a go.

Before contacting anyone, I knew straight away that I did not want to do this alone and thus replicate my earlier satellite practice. As I was thinking who might be interested in collaborating with me, I remembered a wonderful workshop on storytelling I attended when I was a Phd student by Marie-Louise Richards^[2], someone who I remember instantly feeling an affinity with through her capacity to successfully operate in the in-between space of art and architecture. In the workshop she cited Audre Lorde, Rachel Carson, among others, in such thoughtful and careful ways and in turn invited us to think about the ways we build and maintain scholarly intimacy and legacies. I also remembered her being such a warm person who laughed a lot, which was obviously a major bonus. There was also something inviting that she was Swedish, working in the Royal Academy of Art in Stockholm, whereas I had just moved to Gothenburg to take up a lecturer position at HDK-Valand, and as such, I was a cultural and linguistic outsider. To share a geography and cultural framework, even if mine was very partial, felt like laying the groundwork for a beginning.

I (Marie-Louise) have come to think of citation as a collective practice. I too was operating as a satellite, feeling alienated within my own discipline. Speaking with, feminists and thinkers from the African diaspora, therefore, emerged as a necessity in breaking my isolation. Speaking with those who came before, dead or living, those of whom we are contemporary, those who we conjure from our imagination — provided me with a collectivity as ways of coping, healing, learning, thinking, resisting and imagining together with peers and heroes through time and space.

While receiving the invitation to collaborate and reading Cathryn’s draft of the essay that sparked this project, I immediately knew that speaking with Cathryn would be very much part of this collectivity and that citing was spatial^[3]. In our practices, citation was also about making space. Moreover, it was about weaving between the spaces of gossip, emails, meetings, phone calls, writing, making space, experience and imagining spaces. Who or what we speak influences practice and knowledge production. – and I wanted to continue speaking and thinking with her, and of the potential of inviting others to join us.

After the initial conversations and shared writing sessions, we co wrote a proposal which outlined a description of the issue:

“We construct citational practices as transdisciplinary, expansive, emancipatory, subversive, generative, emotional, political, spatial, sensory, performative, utopic, conflictual, dialogic, ecological, technological (to name some!). In this issue we wish to center visual practices (in the expanded sense of the term) which dynamically challenge institutional and historical logics of what citation can and perhaps should be. Further, we wish to interrogate and nuance the right vs. wrong ethic which governs the binary of citing vs. plagiarizing, and unpack the motivations, intentions and implications which dictate who we cite, how we cite, why we cite them as well as those who are consistently left out of dominant disciplinary processual frameworks. How do artistic, curatorial, architectural, spatial, cinematic, sonic, techno, gastro (and more!) practices help shape new directions for our conversations on citation?”

We received a generous and immediate response from the editor of one visual arts journal, which we were really encouraged by and appreciated. However, as we started to really think together about what we wanted to achieve, we felt that working within the structure of a mainstream large academic publisher wouldn’t allow us to operate as editors in a way which felt integral to the theme, i.e. as comrades committed to challenging institutional structures which dictate how citation is often conceived and practiced. Secure in this position, we chose to approach Jyoti Mistry (editor in chief)^[4] and Rose Brander (coordinator)^[5] of Parse, an international platform for artistic research operating out of the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts at the University of Gothenburg. Parse had been producing innovative themed issues, they had an established transparent peer review practice and were very open to doing things differently. Parse, along with Petra Bauer^[6] at Mejan, encouraged us to think of ways the issue could be developed through public events which allow us to build dialogue and knowledge which can influence the final outcome. This was a really exciting opening which we wanted to fully commit to and spend time fostering.

…………………..

For the last 6 months we, as co-editors of the forthcoming issue of PARSE on Citations,

have been planning and curating the 3 events and the upcoming issue which is due for publication in May 2023.

We have 3 events scheduled for Fall 2022:

The first is on August 28th in Stockholm (with invited contributors Denise Ferreira da Silva and Valentina Desideri).

The second is on the 6th and 7th of October in Gothenburg (with invited contributor Léuli Eshrāghi).

The final event is on the 1st of December online (a conversation with contributors led by co-editors Marie-Louise Richards and Cathryn Klasto).

These events aim to offer exploratory positions and pathways to discuss and articulate citational practice together, giving space and time to gather our thoughts and ideas.

Another avenue in which to interrogate the theme is a specifically designed peer review procedure for the issue which aims to reclaim the word peer which we feel has been lost within institutional frameworks. Rather than a blind peer review process, the issue asks the contributors to operate as peer reviewers. Contributors will be paired to develop a relation and understanding of each other’s work – they will have an initial conversation and then later be given a peer review template to review with. These templates will be collated and turned into a visual essay for the issue.

We have so far commissioned 7 contributions for the issue, inviting individuals and collaborations who we felt engaged strongly with citational practices in innovative and nuanced ways. We are now looking for 3 commissioned contributions to join us in a working model that is experimental and expansive. The 3 commissioned pieces from the open call for papers, will be both complementary to the existing commissions, while also providing differing perspectives and positions. What is expected from each commissioned individual/collaboration is:

1. a contribution to the issue (textual and/or practice based)
2. engagement with the peer review process
3. attendance to event 3 (online process)

Our timeline invites you to assess if this is viable for everything else going on in your life:

Event 1: August 28th (event in Stockholm)

Event 2: October 6th and 7th (event in Gothenburg)

Event 3: December 1st (online process)

Peer Review process: January 2023-February 2023

Final contributions received: March 31st

Production for publication: April- May

Launch of Issue. May (Date tbc)

If this feels like something which fits well with you and your practice, we very much would like to hear from you. You are welcome to submit your abstract (no more than 250 words) and tell us something about yourself (150 word description).

Submit directly to: https://forms.gle/BFR3hFq1s2gwBPoT8

 

You will receive an automated reply confirming we have received your submission.

The final deadline is 17 June 2022 and unfortunately due to the project and publishing schedule we cannot extend the deadline. You will receive a response regarding the outcome of your submission by 27 June 2022.

Thank you for reading and taking the time to consider submitting. We would also appreciate if you could share this call as we are keen to extend beyond our own networks.

Very best wishes

Cathryn and Marie-Louise

 

1. Jason E. Bowman. You can find out more about Jason and his work here: https://www.gu.se/en/about/find-staff/jasonbowman (accessed 3rd May 2022). ↑
2. Marie-Louise Richards. You can find out more about Marie-Louise and her work here: https://marielouiserichards.com/about (accessed 3rd May 2022). ↑
3. Cathryn Klasto. You can find out more about Cathryn and her work here: https://www.gu.se/en/about/find-staff/cathrynklasto (assessed 3rd May 2022). ↑
4. Jyoti Mistry. You can find out more about Jyoti and her work here: https://www.gu.se/en/about/find-staff/jyotimistry (assessed 3rd May 2022). ↑
5. Rose Brander. You can find out more about Rose and her work here: https://www.gu.se/en/about/find-staff/rosebrander (assessed 3rd May 2022). ↑
6. Petra Bauer. You can find out more about Petra and her work here: https://kkh.se/en/about/staff/petra-bauer/ (assessed 3rd May 2022). ↑