Our Honorary Member Tzvetan Todorov passed away on the 7th February 2017. It is with great sadness that we learned of the news. Professor Todorov had been supportive of the Culture and Dialogue project from the outset. As a historian, philosopher, aesthetician, and literary critic he witnessed and reflected upon many of the good and bad things our modern world offered – and continues to offer. In one way or another the nature and possibility of the dialogue was always for him a central question to address, should we take the time and the trouble to think of how to bring out the best in the human condition. One thing that the cycles of life cannot take away from us is learning from the spirit of the dialogue that Tzvetan Todorov conveyed. The cruelty of death will never prevent us from transmitting to our fellow human beings what he called “that fragile legacy, those words that help us live a better life.”
Culture and Dialogue is an international peer-reviewed journal of cross-cultural philosophy and humanities that is published semi-annually both in print and electronically. The Journal seeks to encourage and promote research in the type of philosophy and theory that sees dialogue as a fundamental ingredient of cultural formations, that is to say the ways cultures become apparent and ultimately identifiable. What is meant here by culture is a particular manifestation of human achievement in the arts, languages, forms of expression (whether secular or religious), and customs of all kinds including political ones. Dialogue, in this context, means a mode of relationship that lets cultural formations unfold by bringing together human beings and, for example, their natural environment, their historical past, traditions, external cultural influences, contemporary trends, other communities, or simply other persons in conversation.
The next 2019 issue (Volume 7, Number 2) will focus on the theme of Culture, War and Sovereignty.
“Culture, War and Sovereignty” can encompass a great many specifically philosophical themes and issues, and some ideas involving dialogical relationships include:
• Comparative philosophy of conflict resolution and reconciliation, which may analyse one or more particular non-Western perspectives and how they can engage the relevant fields of Western philosophy.
• Philosophical reflection on the range of approaches to war and sovereignty (analytic, interpretive, Western, Eastern etc.)
• Inquiry into the cultural dimension of conflicts.
• The role and significance of dialogue in conflict resolution and reconciliation.
• The nature of and justification for sovereignty claims across cultures.
• The essence of war and the question of sovereignty from interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary perspectives.
We welcome essays that address any of these issues from different cultural perspectives or philosophical traditions.
Submissions to: admin@culture-dialogue.net
Notes for Authors: www.culture-dialogue.net/notes-for-authors
Deadline: Open until selection standards are met
The Journal provides a forum for researchers from philosophy as well as other disciplines who study cultural formations dialogically, through comparative analysis, or within the tradition of hermeneutics. Contributions are expected to either reflect on the role played by dialogue in cultural formations from various perspectives such as politics, religion and the arts; or else establish cross-cultural dialogues globally within those fields. For each issue, the Journal seeks to bring manuscripts together with a common denominator such as “Politics and Dialogue”, “Art and Dialogue”, or “Dialogue and the Environment”.
The language of the Journal is English, but submissions in other languages including German, Traditional Chinese, French and Japanese may be considered for Special Issues with guest editors.
As the purpose of the Journal is to concretely foster awareness of the vital need for dialogue in several cultural practices, it will not publish works overloaded with technical jargon, opaque rhetoric and self-addressed language-games.
The Editorial Board is composed of world authorities and academics who all share an interest in the idea of dialogue from within philosophy or the humanities at large. Members of the Board come from Asia, Europe, Africa, North and South America, as well as Oceania.
