Call For Articles
GARBAGE: Bad Subjects is soliciting articles (1,500-2,000 words) on the topic
of "Garbage" for its upcoming issue (March 6, 2001).
Today we live in a world were consumption of innumerable products continues
to grow. With each new product or market niche discovered and exploited, the
capitalist law of designed obsolescence becomes more apparent. Everything we
buy ends up in a land fill coming to a low-income neighborhood near, but not
too near, you--unless of course you are planning on stashing everything for a
profitable appearance on the "Antique Roadshow" some day. Even our trash now
has commodity value. Bad Subjects seeks short, accessible essays relating to
the politics of everyday life for its March/April issue on the topic of
Garbage. What is the role of garbage in our world today? Is there such a
thing as garbage in the material sense, or, as demonstrated by the intense
rise in collectibles of every sort over the past five years, has capitalism
managed to turn its waste into something other than garbage? What then are
the new disposables of the 21st Century? Is garbage now confined to
immaterial social institutions and beliefs once viewed as indispensable? What
is the status of family? Friendship? Love? Parenting? Charity? Ethics? This
is not an old fashioned argument for right-wing Christian family values.
Rather it is a query to explore the interrelationship of the continual rise
of the material commodity to the point where almost everything that's
physical is potentially a commodity (a sacred materiality) and the seeming
restructuring of the immaterial as expendable, unimportant,
irrelevant--garbage. Property values now matter more than accessible housing.
Profits for share holders takes precedent over stable labor markets and wages
that maintain a quality standard of living. Good jobs and expensive
lifestyles demand that parents work at the office more than with family. So
answer this question: what is garbage today -- and why? 1,500 to 2,000 word
article submissions are due March 6, 2001. Please submit to issue editors
Robert Soza at r_soza@uclink4.berkeley.edu or Frederick Luis Aldama at
aldamaf@colorado.edu.
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