Historical Materialism Middle East Special Issue

 

Historical Materialism has extended the deadline for proposal submissions to its special issue on the Middle East, conceived broadly to include: the Arab world from the Atlantic to the Gulf, Israel/Palestine, Iran and Turkey.  The new deadline for abstracts is the 10th of November 2010.

HM is a Marxist journal, appearing four times a year, based in London.  HM asserts that, notwithstanding the variety of its practical and theoretical articulations, Marxism constitutes the most fertile conceptual framework for analysing social phenomena with an eye to their overhaul.  In its selection of materials, HM does not favour any one tendency, tradition or variant of Marxism.

In the contemporary period, the Middle East remains a key flashpoint of global politics, rent by occupation, imperialism and the fallout of  global economic crisis.  In this context the insights of Marxism, in all its variations, could provide a much-needed corrective to the ahistorical and elite-focused theorizing that typifies analysis of the  Middle East.  Aiming to publish such analysis, the HM special issue will unite a range of innovative Marxist work on the Middle East across a broad spectrum of academic disciplines, to reflect critically  on the region’s social, political and economic development.  Having received a number of excellent submissions already, contributions are invited on topics such as the following:

  • The historical development and contemporary political economy of the Middle East particularly the Gulf and the Arab world outside of Palestine, embracing the development of neo-liberalism, new confluences of capital and capital-state relationships.
  • Questions of regime transition in authoritarian states and the role of workers and contemporary social movements.
  • A comparative analysis of the social and political struggle of women across different countries in the Middle East.
  • Patterns of migrant-worker flows in the Middle East, the role of remittances in national economies, and the potential forms of organizing in these migrant communities in the region.
  • Urbanism and the politics of space in the cities of the Middle East.
  • Assessments of developments in Marxist theory or of the work of prominent Marxists within the region.

Potential contributors are invited to submit a short abstract (max. 200 words) outlining the key arguments of their prospective paper to Jamie Allinson, Sebastian Budgen and Adam Hanieh at historicalmaterialism@soas.ac.uk by November 10, 2010.  Final papers (max. 12,000 words length) will be expected to be submitted by 1 May 2011 and the journal will be published in early 2012.


For more information about Historical Materialism, visit <www.historicalmaterialism.org>.




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