Edited by Roberta Garrett, Tracey Jensen and Angie Voela
Proposals and Final Essays should be submitted by 30th April 2014 to:
Roberta Garrett r.garrett@uel.ac.uk
Tracey Jensen t.jensen@uel.ac.uk
Angela Voela a.voela@uel.ac.uk
Across social, cultural and political theory, neoliberalism is frequently associated with the triumph of individualism over traditional social bonds and relationships, the extension of economic imperatives into personal and intimate realms, and the supplanting of co-operation and mutualism with virulent competition, contractualisation and the rules and norms of the market. The ‘neoliberal subject’ – self-governing, enterprising, calculating – that is produced within and disciplined by neoliberal discourse is often presumed to be precarious, weightless and fluid: unencumbered by institutional forms of alliance and filiation. Yet, despite being endlessly reinvented as ‘in decline’ and in crisis across public debate and policymaking, the family remains at the aperture of psychocultural and psychosocial interest and fascination. Popular fictional and representational texts, which invest powerfully in traditional notions of the family as the bedrock of human relationships and society, have proliferated under neoliberalism. But what is the relationship between families and neoliberalism? How has neoliberalism changed that ways that we think about and represent the family? How are ideas of solidarity, intimacy, legacy and the cultural politics of gender, generation and belonging transformed in this neoliberal moment? And how do affective and intimate forms of belonging and struggle in turn transform the attributes, demands and politics of neoliberalism? Does the family assume such a prominent role in contemporary popular culture because it provides the only source of support and solace in the brutal environment created by neoliberal economic policies? Or does it function to reinforce, reproduce and naturalise neoliberal values and attitudes? Does the family serve to ‘naturalise’ retreat from public life and collective politics, and the pursuit of personal satisfactions and private legacy? Can the family be a source of social critique under neoliberalism? How do popular cultural texts reshape, resist or reinforce neoliberal conceptions of the traditional family? How can we disentangle ‘individuality’ and ‘family’ from the grip of neoliberalism and redefine their content, relevance or significance? How do popular cultural texts reshape, resist or reinforce neoliberal conceptions of the traditional family?
We have only just started to scratch the surface of these debates. There is a gap between the social sciences, cultural theory and psychosocial studies in which these questions can be productively explored. This volume seeks articles which speak across these disciplines, which address and examine how neoliberalism concerns the manipulation of the family at a bio-political level, how the emotional investments in neoliberalism manifest in the family, and how cultural (and often contradictory) resistances to neoliberalism/neoliberal familialism might have wider purchase. The volume invites work which analyses sociocultural and political discourses and popular cultural texts and from different theoretical perspectives. Particular emphasis is placed on the literary and cinematic and representational devices employed around neoliberalism. Submissions from outside Anglo-Saxon Europe are encouraged. Theoretically informed contributions are being encouraged.
Possible topics may include:
• Moral panics and the sexualisation of young women;
• Cultural representations of gay parenting;
• ‘Helicopter’ parents and the culture of intensive parenting;
• Family and reinvention/recombinatory genres;
• Crime fiction and the child victim;
• Governmentality, affirmation and resistance;
• Intimate markets and contractualisation;
• Masculinity, femininity and childhood;
• Alternative families in neoliberalism;
• Textual negotiation of neoliberal values;
• Imaginary geographies of the neoliberal family
• Archetypical families and religion
• Emotional economies of neoliberalism: parasitic, beastly, lumpen, abject families
• Therapeutic discourses, self-help and intimate neoliberalism
350-500 word chapter proposals are due by 30th April 2014.
Proposals should be for original works not previously published (including in conference proceedings) and that are not currently under consideration for another edited collection or journal. If the essay is accepted for the collection, a full draft (5000-7000 words) will be required by November 30th 2014. Editors are happy to discuss ideas prior to the deadline.
Proposals and Final Essays should be submitted to:
Roberta Garrett r.garrett@uel.ac.uk
Tracey Jensen t.jensen@uel.ac.uk
Angela Voela a.voela@uel.ac.uk