Vermin: Nyx, a noctournal call for contributions Rats. Cockroaches. Locusts. Plagues and infestations. Vermin are the unwanted, the weeds of the animal kingdom, the exterminable. They spread infection and disease and pose a threat to human life. For its ninth issue, Nyx, a noctournal seeks contributions that address the concept of vermin.
How can we think about the construction of vermin, particularly in relation to the human and social world? Vermin. Those noxious elements, those patrons of the gutter, those outsiders, those parasites, those eyesores of an otherwise secure and vindicated environment. As the uncontrollable, as social scoundrels, vermin operate in those dark places, underground, seeking upward mobility or simply to feed off discards of the ethically sanitized. For that vermin carry the potential to cause harm. Vermin invest and infect the purity of the biological body, the harmony of the body politic. The rats, the underclass, the unproductive. And yet, vermin spring from the very way in which the un-vermin live and think. Vermin strive on waste of productivity and are constituted by processes of social verminization, that is, by the un-vermin. To be vermin, then, is a state, a relation, a way of being far from inoculated from other states, other relations, and other ways of being. We welcome submissions in the form of academic essays, pieces of journalism, fiction and experimental writing, images or other pieces of visual art. Nyx, a noctournal is a print and online publication of critical theory, radical politics and art. It is peer reviewed by a collective of young researchers, activists and theorists and is based at Goldsmiths, University of London. Brief proposals in abstract form, of no more than 500 words/3 images, should be sent along with a brief biography to [email protected] by 31/10/13 _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
