Call for Papers. The Absent Subject: Feminist Struggles in Contemporary Times

Posted on 2025-02-06

The Absent Subject:

Feminist Struggles in Contemporary Times

Editors: Cristina Basili (University of Bologna), Gonzalo Ramos (Complutense University of Madrid)
Submission Period for Articles and Reviews:
Publication Date:
Languages: Spanish, English, and Catalan
Instructions for Authors:
https://www.e-revistes.uji.es/index.php/asparkia/about/submissions
For further information on the issue: cristina.basili2@unibo.it, gonramos@ucm.es
Address: mguiral@uji.es
Reviews:

Asparkía. Feminist Research is an open-access biannual journal published in January  and July. It is a journal based on blind peer review, with no associated publication fees, edited by the Purificación Escribano Institute for Feminist and Gender Studies at Universitat Jaume I of Castelló. Asparkía aims to attract high-quality scientific articles from national and international researchers in the fields of gender studies and feminist theory in a broad sense. The journal is indexed in: SCOPUS, FECYT Quality Seal, with Best Practices in Gender Equality, CARHUS Plus+ 2014, ERIHPlus, MIAR, ISOC Database, Latindex, Dialnet, Dulcinea, REDIB, DICE, RESH, IN-RECS, CIRC, and Ulrichsweb.

Call for Papers:


In the first half of the 20th century, we witness the consolidation of feminist theories and struggles at a global level. From early discussions around the “woman issue” to the development of feminist theories and practices in the political and social movements of the 1970s, women positioned the problem of their exclusion from the public sphere at the center of their theoretical proposals and political demands. In light of these events, it became relevant for philosophers, writers, intellectuals, and activists to develop a critical perspective on the fundamental categories of political modernity, with the goal of responding to the universalism they promote. This theoretical commitment allowed for a focus not only on the absence of women in modern political discourse, but also on the mechanisms of domination that render them invisible in the cultural, social, and economic spheres. In this way, the reflection on the subordination of women became an essential factor in political and social transformation, crucial for understanding the dynamics of an era that challenged traditional political ideas.

This special issue seeks to interrogate the history of political thought in the first half of the 20th century in order to recover and highlight those theoretical elaborations and political experiences that, placing the woman question as the basis— the absent, invisible, and neutralized subject by the apparatus of patriarchal power— have been able to pose a radical critique of the structures of political, social, and economic power that contemporary feminist demands have inherited and adapted to the present time. Philosophers, intellectuals, and activists such as Rosa Luxemburg, Emma Goldman, Voltairine de Cleyre, Dora Marsden, Aleksandra Kolontái, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Angela Davis, among many others, as well as the Combahee River Collective and currents of Italian and French sexual difference theory, have developed a critical perspective on the fundamental categories of political modernity—society, class, state, individual—while seeking to expand the political imagination from diverse theoretical and conceptual frameworks. The study of this period of intense change invites reflection not only on the prominence and relevance of women in the history of political thought, but also challenges the traditional narrative of the history of feminism. This approach proposes rethinking its significance today primarily through an exercise of de-foundationalization that questions the very category of “woman.”

In recent decades, an increasing number of authors, such as Zerilli (“Toward a Freedom-Centered Feminist Historiography,” 2023), Browne (“Feminism, Time, and Nonlinear History,” 2014), or Hewitt (“Feminist Frequencies: Regenerating the Wave Metaphor,” 2012), among others, have pointed out that, paradoxically, the metaphor of the “waves”—chosen to describe the development of feminism—relies on the same liberal principles it seeks to evade. This way of conceiving the expansion of feminist movements refers to a vision of history as linear and centered on the “West,” as well as a teleological conception of political action. Maintaining such a framework not only has theoretical consequences, but also underestimates the need to maintain a constant tension with the established order. In other words, the metaphor of feminist “waves” prevents thinking of patriarchy as the anachronism that sustains the male politics of progress (Rudan, Woman: History and Critique of a Political Concept, 2023). In this sense, addressing the complexity of feminist theories and practices in the early stages of the twentieth century can become a political thought exercise aimed at reconfiguring and rethinking today’s challenges.

Thus, this special issue pursues a dual historical-philosophical and historical-conceptual objective. On the one hand, it aims to contribute to a revision of the history of political thought and feminist theory by shifting its margins through the valorization of the largely unexplored potential of women’s diverse struggles in the first half of the 20th century; on the other hand, it seeks to rescue those political experiences and feminist figures who, radically questioning the patriarchal order, reconfigure its theoretical foundations, affirming the need for constant tension with the recurring emergence of its exclusionary devices.

The publication will focus on the following thematic lines:

  1. Women’s Struggles in the Early 20th Century: Presentation and analysis of works by philosophers, intellectuals, and activists reflecting on the “woman question” and her exclusion from the public sphere in the early 20th century.
  2. Feminisms and Marxisms: Presentation and analysis of works by philosophers, intellectuals, and activists addressing the problem of women’s subordination and non-hegemonic identities from a Marxist theoretical framework from the early 20th century to the 1970s.
  3. Feminisms and Anarchism: Presentation and analysis of works by philosophers, intellectuals, and activists addressing the problem of women’s subordination and non-hegemonic identities from an anarchist theoretical framework from the early 20th century to the 1970s.
  4. Black Feminisms: Presentation and analysis of works by philosophers, intellectuals, and activists addressing the problem of women’s subordination and non-hegemonic identities from an intersectional theoretical framework from the early 20th century to the 1970s.