Call for papers - Special Issue War and Fun

Fun has every shade of connotation, from the most joyful to the most sinister. The special issue “War and Fun” to be published by War & Society will use the category of “fun” and related concepts – pleasure, humour, joy – as an entry point to explore the experience of war from the perspective of those who fight.

The suffering and hardships that humans endure within war cannot be stressed enough. It is precisely for this reason that we need more nuanced understandings of the experience of war. While exploring the relevance of fun in war may strike some people as trivializing human suffering, we invite contributions to show that an investigation of this kind is crucial if we want to unveil the plurality of experiences and affective grammars that would otherwise be neglected by the exclusive focus on the normative aspects of war.

Submission of the proposed title and abstract (150 words) and biography is due on 31 March 2023. 

The full paper (maximum 8000 words) should be submitted by 16 June 2023. Find more information on this call for papers here.

The special issue builds on an ongoing project funded by the European Research Council and entitled “War and Fun: Reconceptualizing Warfare and Its Experience”, led by Antonio De Lauri (Reserach Professor at the Chr. Michelsen Institute).

The War & Society journal publishes scholarly articles on the causes, experience and impact of war, particularly on the broader relationships between warfare and society.

The guest editors for this special issue are: Antonio De Lauri, Iva Jelusic, Eva Johais, Heidi Mogstad and Luigi Achilli.

Submissions should be sent to:
Antonio De Lauri, antonio.delauri@cmi.no
Emily Hume, emily.hume@cmi.no