Special Note to Contributors: The Radical History Review organizes the journal around theme-specific issues only (i.e. World History, The Americas, Empire, Transnational Labor Movements, etc.).  RHR welcomes submissions of articles and essays that correspond with the thematic issues being planned.  Calls for Papers for issues are posted on this website (below) and on various academic listservs, including H-Net.org. Submissions that are unrelated to these themes will not be considered. We urge readers to regularly check the RHR website for updates on future issues.

Call for Papers
Issue #105: The Iranian Revolution Turns 30
Editors: Nasrin Rahimieh, Ervand Abrahamian, Behrooz Ghamari, Ahmad Sadri, Mansour Bonakdarian

The Radical History Review is soliciting submissions for the special issue of the journal marking the 30th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79.  Although the editors of this issue do not consider “anniversaries” as the most meaningful way of measuring historical time and developments--socially, politically, intellectually, and culturally--, this special issue of the RHR offers an opportunity to explore and consider the domestic and global significance, impact, and ramifications of the Iranian Revolution at a time when Iran is again increasingly capturing the news headlines around the world and discussed as a “problem” by the governments in the United States, Western Europe, and Israel, while there is talk of a “second cultural revolution” in the Islamic Republic of Iran by observers both inside and outside Iran. Like other revolutions, the Iranian revolution of 1979 neither was a historical inevitability in its inception nor in its outcome. However, the continued domestic and global significance and impact of the Iranian revolution remain indisputable.

The editors of this special issue of RHR are interested in examining the contingencies and actors that shaped the revolution as well as the consequences of the revolution (domestically, internationally, and transnationally).  We are seeking submissions that specifically, but not exclusively, address the following topics:

1. Retrospective examination of the participation of different social groups in the revolutionary movement, such as workers, peasants, tribes, women, religious and/or ethnic minorities, students, and the clergy.
2. Postrevolutionary social movements, such as the civil rights, human rights, student, women’s, and labor movements.
3. The role of the Marxist Left or Liberals in the revolution and its aftermath.
4. The ideological significance of Islam in the revolutionary mobilization and in the postrevolutionary power struggle.
5. The Iranian revolution in the context of the Cold War national liberation movements.
6. The significance of the Revolution in the Muslim world.
7. The gendered character of the Revolution and the postrevolutionary transformation of gender relations and the broad array of debates on gender rights.
8. State politics in postrevolutionary Iran.
9. Hermeneutical Islam and Islamic sources of political authority.
10. The postrevolutionary institutional and doctrinal transformations of Shi`ism.
11. US-Iranian relations and the emergence of a new “Cold War,” as well as other aspects of Iran’s international relations.
12. Revolutionary arts, media, music, literature, poetry, stamps, posters, etc., and the cultural transformations and postrevolutionary developments in artistic, musical, and literary expressions and productions.
13. Iranian exilic communities and diasporic politics.
14. Revolutionary, anti-revolutionary, and other modes of political-historical commemoration (e.g., including the Iranian-Armenian remembrance of the “Armenian Genocide”).

We particularly encourage submissions that probe new areas of inquiry and employ innovative heuristic and analytical methodologies. In addition to regular feature articles, RHR publishes articles in the Reflections, Interventions, Curated Spaces, Roundtables, Interviews, and Reviews sections of the journal. We highly encourage proposed Reviews essays on relevant art or museum exhibits, films, and performances, in addition to Reviews of seminal publications in the field.

RHR also encourages prospective authors to include images with their submissions. Authors are responsible for obtaining copyright permissions (if required) for images that are not considered “public domain.”

Submissions are due by June 30, 2008, and should be received electronically as Microsoft Word attachment files, sent to rhr@igc.org with "Issue 105 submission" in the subject line. For artwork, please send images as high-resolution digital files (each image as a separate file). For preliminary e-mail inquiries, please include "Issue 105" in the subject line. Articles selected for publication after the peer review process will be included in issue 105 of the Radical History Review, scheduled to appear in Fall 2009.

Submission Deadline: June 30, 2008
Email: rhr@igc.org

Call for Papers
Issue #106: Taking Sides: The Role of Visual Culture in War, Occupation and Resistance

The Radical History Review solicits contributions for a special issue on visual culture in war, occupation and resistance.  Artists have often taken sides in ideological conflicts and in actual conflagrations. In terms of visual culture and resistance, the literature and music of the South African struggle, the murals of Belfast and Derry in Ireland and the poetry of the many Latin American movements for change are relatively well documented. Less analysis is available on the role of artists on one side or another of recent conflicts. Wars of Liberation and popular revolts such as those in Angola, Algeria, Iran and the Basque Country spring to mind. Despite the scale and impact of the Vietnam War, little knowledge is available in terms of the role of visual culture in the mass mobilizations against both the French and US occupations. Approaching five years into the occupation of Iraq and with numerous groups engaged in resistance, what form does visual culture play in demarcating opposing political positions? How have artists in colonized or oppressed nations viewed themselves and their work in terms of the largely western models that shape what is commonly defined as ‘art’ (the gallery, theater etc)? What has been the role of visual culture in support of imperialism or colonial expansion, as well as officially ‘state sanctioned’ cultural production? 

The role of visual culture in conflict situations also prompts an examination of the implications of artistic ‘neutrality’. Despite current global instability many artists and cultural producers, especially in the western artistic tradition, consider their work to be apolitical or neutral. Can artistic neutrality be said to exist in conflict situations, or is culture ultimately, in the words of Edward Said, “…a battleground on which causes expose themselves to the light of day and contend with one another?” (Culture and Imperialism).

This issue of RHR is particularly interested in exploring these questions. Issues of interest include, but are not limited to, the following areas:

• The role and impact of visual culture (visual art and photography, theater, film or graphic works) in anti-colonial and popular struggles in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Europe.
• Culture and de-colonization: The role of visual culture in reinventing/reclaiming a sense of self/nation in newly independent states.
• Shifts in visual culture in Eastern Europe (Poland/Soviet Union/former Yugoslavia, etc). How do politics and aesthetics relate in these emerging capitalist economies?
• Occupation and Collaboration: What strategies and roles have artists played either in opposition to, or in collaboration with, occupying, repressive forces?
• The role of visual culture in resistance and social movements in the United States, with a particular emphasis on the class struggle and the movements for asserting identities in the African American, Latino(a), Asian, Native American movements, as well as in support of broad forces such as anti war, disability rights, struggles for gender equality and acceptance.
• The role of visual culture in the service of imperialism and in the imposition of authoritarian and repressive regimes. 
• Cultural policy in newly independent states and cultural policy in liberation movements aiming to establish power (ANC, PLO etc).
• Art and class in struggles for social transformation.
• New technologies and media in the service of liberation movements.
• Visual culture and war: How do artists responding to war compete with photography and documentary filmmaking? Are images of war so ubiquitous as to be redundant?
• Art versus Propaganda: How does visual culture retain power and how are partisan viewpoints articulated in an image/media-saturated world?

Radical History Review solicits article proposals from scholars working in all historical periods and across all disciplines, including art history, history, anthropology, religious studies, media studies, sociology, philosophy, political science, gender, and cultural studies.  Submissions are not restricted to traditional scholarly articles. We welcome short essays, documents, photo essays, art and illustrations, teaching resources, including syllabi, and reviews of books and exhibitions.

Submissions are due by November 15, 2008 and should be submitted electronically, as an attachment, to rhr@igc.org with "Issue 106 submission" in the subject line. For artwork, please send images as high-resolution digital files (each image as a separate file). For preliminary e-mail inquiries, please include "Issue 106" in the subject line. Those articles selected for publication after the peer review process will be included in issue 106 of the Radical History Review, scheduled to appear in Winter 2009.

Submission Deadline: November 15, 2008
Email: rhr@igc.org