NO.63 Special Issue on: “Private Life” [私人生活]
Chung Hsing Journal of the Humanities (CHJH) seeks articles and essays for a special issue devoted to the topic of “private life.” Over the past decade or two, countless studies employing biopolitical and posthumanist theoretical assumptions have tried to explain what “life” (Greek zoe/bios) is or means today; however, very little of this scholarship has been devoted to the ages old political and philosophical dilemma of “private life.” From the early-19th century on Western society has emphasized private life as a privileged domain of existence distinct from its partner, public life (the public sphere), in that it encompasses a space where everything from family life to leisure pursuits and sexual relations freely take place. Today, however, private life appears increasingly under siege by omnipresent social networks, government and corporate surveillance, and a rhetoric of “sharing” that demands private life be de-privatized, fetishized, or constantly put on display (as vividly portrayed in Dave Eggers’ The Circle). For this special issue of CHJH we seek articles that question these challenges to private life, explore its non-Western cultural dimensions, and examine its history and meanings from a variety of theoretical and/or philosophical perspectives.
Deadline: 2019.04.30 | Published: 2019.09