Clio’s Psyche Call for Papers on
Our Emotional Connections to Art, Books, Media,
Music, Objects, Podcasts, TV, etc.
The Summer 2022 Special Issue
(Papers due 6/1/2022)
Dear Colleague,
Humans like to think of themselves as quite rational but in fact we are dominated by our emotions far more than we like to acknowledge. Our emotions give us the energy to live our lives. We project these emotions onto each other and art, books, cartoons, media, music, physical objects, podcasts, TV, and so many other things. My thought is to begin a long-term project focused on how the expression of these emotions is both directly connected to our incredible creativity and our confusion of fantasy and reality. Of course, humans have controlled the world to the point of turning our fantasies into reality for better and worse.
An aspect of this that I have long been interested in is media as object relations. Starting with TV where we emotionally connect to these programs and the characters within them. We connect with each other and organize part of our lives around particular interests and media outlets. Many decades ago, the majority of serious-minded, educated Americans would get the view of the news from Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, or one of a very few respected commentators. Now we have a fragmentation of the audience in so many different ways. It is not simply a matter of Trump supporters watching Fox news during the election and Clinton and Biden supporters watching CNN or CNBC. In politics, the tendency is to be in separate echo chambers. Most Americans are not into politics very much, but they are geared to their favorite separate children’s programs; Facebook posts, pages, and videos; game shows; music stations; podcasts; TikToks; TV programs; YouTube videos; and innumerable other specialized forms of media. In national crises such as 9/11, the January 6th forced entry of Congress, or a disputed presidential election, people overwhelmingly and temporarily leave their separate media chambers. But not for long!
Potential authors should choose a media format that grabs their attention knowing that in Clio’s Psyche we tend to favor a mixture of psychology with personal statement as we are Eriksonian participant observers in search of knowledge. It need not only be media: Harley Davidson writers identify themselves as such and many other groups identify themselves in part by the technology they prize. We have a strong preference for case studies as well and I would love to have historical materials that come earlier in our electronic age and especially before it. Ancient history is so rich in the human projection of emotion onto Mount Olympus and everything else. But then, so is all history.
For one or more issues of our journal, we are looking for thoughtful, psychoanalytically, historically, and psychologically based papers on a variety of subjects, including:
- Ways of expression
- Ways of identification individually and in groups
- Ways of connecting, socializing, and creating friendship (I do it with psychohistory)
- Ways in which media serves as object relations
- Ways in which my tools (my garage is full of them) defined me when I built a small apartment
- What emotions are evoked by the screens you watch? (The Saturday morning cartoons I watch while cooking breakfast take me back to the movies I went to as a young boy before TV became common)
- Ways in which music serves as an identifier of individuals, generations, and groups
(e.g., listeners to Shostakovich are not likely to listen to the sensational K-pop group BTS, and a Russian-born colleague reports that “we were one nation” defined by WWII’s music/movies) - Why do you watch certain screens and what emotions do they invoke?
(e.g., I watch certain screens because my wife likes them, and they become a part of my life — and you?) - Why do you or people you care about watch certain media to relax?
(e.g., my wife does not believe we should eat without having some relaxing television…) - Case studies of how media inspires our personal lives and our work
- Reviews of books and media relevant to this subject
You can get a better sense of our approaches by visiting our website (https://cliospsyche.org/archives) where you can find issues from 1994 to within a year of the present. Our website provides guidelines (cliospsyche.org/guidelines) for authors.
We seek articles from 1,000-2,000 words — including a 25-word abstract, 7-10 keywords, and your brief biography ending in your e-mail address — by June 1st, 2022. An abstract or outline by May 15, 2022, would be helpful. Send them as attached Microsoft Word documents (*.docx) or rich text format (*.rtf) files to cliospsycheeditor@gmail.com.
It is the style of our scholarly quarterly to publish thought-provoking, clearly written articles based upon psychological/psychoanalytic insight and developed with examples from history, current events, and the human experience. We are open to all psychological approaches and prefer that articles be personalized (we like case studies), without psychoanalytic/psychological terminology or jargon, and without foot/endnotes or a bibliography (use internal citations for quotations). We have a policy of accepting one long article (3,000-3,500 words) per issue, provided it is eminently insightful and readable. It may be used as the basis of a symposium if received a month and a half early. Submissions the editors deem suitable are anonymously refereed.
For those who are not familiar with our publication and its sponsor, in June 2021, Clio’s Psyche completed its 27th year of publication by the Psychohistory Forum, a 39-year-old organization of academics, therapists, and laypeople holding regular scholarly meetings in Manhattan, at international conventions, and online. For additional meeting information join the Forum. Information may be found at our website on cliospsyche.org.
Perhaps you want to work on this important subject as more than an author but as a guest co-editor) hope you can join this important endeavor. Many of our subscribers tell us that they find our publication to be a lively, compelling read that provides in-depth analyses. Please forward this Call for Papers to any colleagues (including associations or electronic mailing lists) who may be interested. If you have any questions, please e-mail me at or cliospsycheeditor@gmail.com.
Sincerely yours,
Paul
Paul H. Elovitz, PhD, Historian, Psychoanalyst, Professor, and Editor, Clio’s Psyche