Call for Submissions: Thresholds 40

(See official Call for Submissions at http://architecture.mit.edu/thresholds/Thresholds40_CFS.pdf )

Gone are the days of black and white and here is the time of grey. As social linkages have become wildly complex, the normative positions that might bring them order have evaporated. What if, for a moment, the rules were put on hold? What if you could stand up for what you believe in without losing your cool?

Such action is urgent: We simultaneously have more awareness of and distance from social crises than ever before. As economies collapse, wars are fought, and the masses are left hungry, nothing seems more urgent than purchasing and enjoying a delicious hamburger.

Do art and design have sufficient agency to interface with these crises? Can there be technological salvation when science's objectivity is coming under fire? Is there a metanarrative lurking in our culture that could generate a new moral authority for society? Or are do-gooders the enemy, obfuscating real issues as social awareness has become hip? What, in fact, is the relationship between art, architecture, and society?

Thresholds 40 invites projects, ideas, and beliefs in a variety of media, including scholarly papers, visual work, and philosophical treatises, that explore the dangerous and messy theme of the socially conscious project.

Submissions due March 28, 2011.

Thresholds is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal that aims to publish only original material. Text should be in American English, limited to 2,500 words, and formatted in accordance with The Chicago Manual of Style. Images should be included separately and be of 8"x9" at 300 dpi print quality. Submissions should include a cover letter with author's name, affiliation, telephone number and email address, and a brief bio. All submissions should be sent in digital format, with text as MS Word or RTF files and images as uncompressed JPEG files. For more information, please visit Thresholds online at http://architecture.mit.edu/thresholds/ .

Please send submissions to:
[email protected]

Please send correspondence and inquiries to:
Jonathan Crisman, Editor
Thresholds, MIT Architecture
77 Massachusetts Ave, Room 7-337
Cambridge, MA 02139
[email protected]