theory@buffalo: An interdisciplinary journal invites graduate students to submit scholarly articles for its 2004 issue (#9) on the theme of Politics and Doxa.

For Western philosophy doxa seems to have been the main enemy, while episteme is the privileged field for thought. This Platonic strain works its way through Kant and Hegel and all the way to the phenomenological tradition. This animosity towards doxa can be felt in the work of contemporary thinkers working beyond these traditions; from Deleuze and Guattari to Alain Badiou and Jean-Luc Nancy, many thinkers have taken positions against doxa, sensus communis or opinion. Many of these radical anti-doxa discourses are now so familiar as to become themselves commonsense. But there is a new discourse on doxa, in which the old concept interfaces with a third element - namely politics. In the recent work of Ernesto Laclau, for instance, doxa can be equated with rhetoric, and, therefore, a new relationship between doxa and thought must be negotiated. This rethinking of doxa from the perspective of a theory of radical left politics -- and with an eye to hegemonic structures -- completely recasts doxa’s relationship to the social. If doxa is reconsidered, what other projects become possible?

We welcome submissions recasting “anti-doxastic” thinkers or presenting new theories of doxa and its relationship to politics.

Possible topics might include: politics of postmodern doxa(s); opinion and radical democracy; capitalism and the paradise/inferno of doxa; the event and ‘everyday-life’ politics; politics and thought; good sense, common sense and consensus, etc.

Submissions are welcome from any disciplinary field including social theory, literary studies, political theory, philosophy, cultural studies, media studies, etc. Submissions should be 10,000 words maximum. Please send two blind copies with a cover page, on paper or a disk to the address below. Or, send an e-version of the paper as an attachment in Microsoft Word to srcucu@buffalo.edu

theory@buffalo also accepts book reviews. Book reviews do not have to be on the topic of Politics and Doxa and should be 1,200 words maximum. See our web site for detailed submission guidelines: http://wings.buffalo.edu/theory

The deadline for essay and review submissions is 15th of March 2004.