The journal “Snodi. Pubblici e private nella storia contemporanea” is pleased to announce a call for papers on:

Becoming a Group

The journal “Snodi. Pubblici e Privati nella storia contemporanea” will devote its 5th issue to the theme: “Becoming a group”. By group we mean any gathering of people that recognizes itself as such: from a group of friends to a political party; from a neighborhood network to an artistic avantgarde; from a group of classmates to a religious community; from the board of a journal to a military unit; from an association of volounteers to a lobby; from a firm to a rock band.

We expect to receive articles adressing the questions of how a group is born and how its grows; in which situation, even before any formal definition, a tie of belonging and self aknowledgement as a group develops. In particular we are interested in the movement from the private to the public sphere: a moment in which an informal network of personal relationships becomes a collective subject active within a society, or even is transformed in an institutional organization. At that time a changing series of relations and internal bonds becomes a structure which can be recognized also form the outside.

Among the questions we are particularly interested in are the following: what is the role of single individuals in a group? Does this role change depending on gender or age? What is the relavance in “becoming a group” of leaders and charasmatic figures? How does a individual decide to become part, or constructs, a collective subject? What does belonging to a group impose on individuals and what does it ensures them? How do groups relate among each other and how do these relationships change or define the group’s profile through processes of distinction? How much and in what circumstances does the social, political and economic context (wether in a crisis or in a moment of development) reinforce or reduce the desire to become a group?

The deadline for the submission of article proposals is September 15, 2009. Please send:

- For the articles section (“Scrivere”): a one-page abstract (2000 characters, including spaces) for a 20-page article (40.000 characters, including spaces).

- For the section “Sources of the individual self/sources of the collective self” (“Fonti dell’io/fonti del noi”): a half-page abstract (1000 characters, including spaces) for a 5-page article (10.000 characters, including spaces).

to the address: snodi.pubbliciprivati@gmail.com, including a short CV and a list of your main publications. Authors of articles in English should have the final version of their texts read and edited by a mother-tongue reader.

The articles selected for publication will be announced October 15, 2009 and will be peer reviewed.