Lexical-Political Research Group on Space and Place
The lexical-political research group on space and place, based in Tel Aviv University, is part of the "Political Lexicon" project - http://mhc.tau.ac.il/en/?cat=4
The group consists of scholars from various fields, such as geography, architecture, philosophy, arts and more. It aims to develop a critical and creative discussion of the concepts used in the current political discourse and to create an open political lexicon that will examine the foundational concepts of national and neo-liberal political thought and that will expand the horizons of political discussion from a various spatial dimensions. Selected works are published in the online bilingual (Hebrew-English) journal "Mafteakh" (key, in Hebrew) -
http://mafteakh.tau.ac.il/en/
Attached is the Call for Papers for Mafteakh. Scholars and artists are invited to submit their works.
The online journal Mafte’akh, published bi-annually in two editions, one Hebrew and one English, is a lexicon in the making. The journal intends to develop a critical and creative discussion of the concepts used in the current political discourse, which is based on directions of thought that were developed in the twentieth century within continental philosophy or inspired by it. Mafte’akh aims to create an open political lexicon that will examine the foundational concepts of national and neo-liberal political thought and that will expand the horizons of political discussion. The boundaries of the political will not be predetermined, but rather, will arise from the compilation of entries and the conceptual network that will develop between them.
The lexical essays included in Mafte’akh do not concentrate on thinkers, methods or certain texts but on concepts. These concepts may be taken from the familiar philosophical dictionary (such as: liberty, equality, rights, justice and so on) or they may express different and original ways of viewing government and the political (such as: space, time, body, feeling, technology, population and so on). One may also turn into concepts devices (e.g., camera, screen, magnetic card) and institutions (e.g., police, school), sites and places (e.g. house, fence, Jerusalem) or events (e.g. May 68),as long as they form the basis for an original point of view on government and the political.
Each essay in the journal is dedicated to one concept. To a certain degree, the essay should take note of the history of the concept and express awareness of its historicity, but it should also go further and present a systematic and innovative answer to the question "what is X?", meaning, what is it that the concept refers to or envisions. Authors are welcome to invent new concepts or to suggest disposing of existing ones. Presentation and critical discussion of the concept may be anchored in one specific theory or may move freely between several related or competing theories, as long as the focus is on a single concept and the reality it refers to.
Mafte’akhis a bilingual journal; the Hebrew edition includes articles translated from other languages, and the English edition includes translations from the Hebrew edition as well as articles that are originally written in English, and will later be translated into Hebrew
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Each year two issues will be published in each language
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Submitting an article in one language is considered a submission to both editions
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Submitted articles are sent for peer-review and are edited by a group of graduate students (in the format customary in law journals) under supervision of senior faculty members
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Articles and responses to them can be submitted to the following address: mafteakh@post.tau.ac.il
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Texts must be submitted in Word format only
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Notes in the texts must be in the form of endnotes
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Images must be sent separately (while noting their exact location in the text)
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The principles guiding the editing of the journal are detailed in the preface of the first issue. The issue can be read and downloaded as a PDF file at: http://mafteakh.tau.ac.il/en/2010-01/00-preface/
Mafte’akh is published by the Lexicon Group for Political Thought, The Minerva Humanities Center, Tel Aviv University:
http://mhc.tau.ac.il/en/
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