Clio’s Psyche Call for Papers:
The Psychology/Psychoanalysis of
the Gun-Loving America
(Articles are to be 500 – 2,500 words including a brief abstract, keywords, & short biography of the author.)
Due Date April 15th, 2025, for the Summer issue
Dear Colleagues,
Red State America, the Supreme Court, Republican Party, and millions of people in the Blue and Purple states are prone to protect gun rights as if they were protecting the lives of their very children! Personally, while not possessing a gun or hunting myself, I have carried one in defense of my country while a draftee in the U.S. Army. However, because guns kill and maim, I dislike their abundance, which results in incredible numbers of successful suicide attempts, accidents, school shootings, murders, to say nothing of assassination attempts on presidents. Personally, I prefer to say “circle points” or dashes rather than bullet points. This is partly because many years ago my 6 foot 4 strapping step-son was an extremely robust and healthy 25-year-old one day and an organ donor the next as a result of a gun accident.
After Hinckley shot President Reagan I once, and only once, taught the course Assassination in American History. The attempted assassination of former president Trump on July 13th once again brings this issue to the fore. Assassinations and attempted assassinations of leaders are quite disruptive to society. I think it is time for an in-depth psychoanalytic/psychological discussion in print of America’s self-destructive love affair with guns, especially those that fire as rapidly as the machine guns that were banned in the 1930s. Consequently, I would like to have a Special Feature of Clio’s Psyche on this subject.
Some possible psychoanalytic/psychological topics to write about include:
- Why are guns so beloved?
- Why do many Americans defend the right to possess high-velocity guns as if their lives depended on them?
- Why in Texas can you now buy bullets from vending machines?
- How do gun rights fit into the culture wars, distracting voters from their economic interests?
- How did and do the NRA and conservative Republicans sell gun rights so successfully?
- What are the psychodynamics of someone in your life or a patient who is a gun advocate?
- Why is gun regulation so difficult in the U.S. as opposed to other developed nations?
- How does gun culture differ in other countries?
- Comparative studies of successful regulation of guns with the situation in the U.S.
- Gun and gun regulations in American history
- Assassinations in history and their consequences
- Gender issues regarding guns
- The psychobiographies and dynamics of mass shooters
- How are widely possessed guns, as in Switzerland, safely kept and not used for crime?
- Shows/movies focused on guns/violence: cathartic or providing role models?
- Poetry advocating weapons and condemning them
- Case studies of mass shooters
- Discussion of some of the scholarly literature regarding gun violence
We seek articles from 1,500-2,500 words—including your title, author name with affiliation, a 35-50-word abstract, 7-10 keywords, and your brief biography (3-4 sentences) ending in your email address. Send documents in Microsoft Word (*docx or doc) format by April 15th, 2025, to cliospsycheeditor@gmail.com or our website. We urge you to share this Call for Papers with colleagues and lists.
It is the style of our scholarly quarterly to publish thought-provoking, clearly written articles usually based upon psychoanalytic/psychological insight and developed with examples from history, current events, and the human experience. We are open to all psychological and psychohistorical approaches and prefer that articles be personalized, without psychoanalytic/psychological terminology or jargon. At the moment, we are converting to a modified version of the latest APA citation system, which will have very few references and those overwhelmingly for direct quotes. We emphasize good literary style without referring to authorities except when essential. Indeed, we discourage citations except where there are quotations, or they are otherwise essential. Submissions the editors deem suitable are anonymously refereed in our double-blind system. Once you have submitted your article, please do not make any further edits to the piece until we return it to you if necessary.
For those who are not familiar with our publication and its sponsor, Clio’s Psyche is in its 30th year of publication by the Psychohistory Forum, a 42-year-old organization of academics, therapists, and laypeople holding regular scholarly meetings in Manhattan, at international conventions, and virtually. For information on our publication and back issues over a year old, go to our website at cliospsyche.org/archives. For more information on our style guidelines, go to cliospsyche.org/guidelines. More information can be found on our other websites, psychohistoryforum.com and psychobiographyforum.com. Write me (cliospsycheeditor@gmail.com) for information on how to join our group and read our print journal.
Sincerely yours,
Paul
Paul H. Elovitz, PhD, Historian, Research Psychoanalyst, Online Professor, Editor-in-Chief, Clio’s Psyche, Founder and Director of the Psychohistory Forum, and author The Making of Psychohistory: Origins, Controversies, and Pioneering Contributors (Routledge, 2018)
E-mail: cliospsycheeditor@gmail.com
Inna
Inna Rozentsvit, MD, PhD, MBA, MSciEd, Associate Editor of Clio’s Psyche, and Associate Director of the Psychohistory Forum, Neurologist, Neurodiversity & Neurorehabilitation Specialist, Psychoanalyst, and Psychohistorian who may be contacted at innarozentsvit@gmail.com