Call for abstracts: “Rousseau and us”

Deadline for submission of abstracts: September 15, 2026

Accepted languages (for abstracts only): IT/FR/EN/DE/ES

Length of abstracts: 300 words (excluding bibliography)

Notification of abstract acceptance: October 15, 2026 (estimated)

Deadline for submission of the manuscript: January 31, 2027

Expected date of publication: end of 2027

In recent radical political thought, Rousseau has played a rather marginal role. This is hardly surprising, given the fate that befell his thought in the immediate aftermath of the French Revolution. As Marxism became the dominant current within the European revolutionary tradition, Rousseau was dismissed as a mere forerunner, if not as a ‘bourgeois’ thinker. In the twentieth century, however, Rousseau has been positively reappraised as a thinker of popular sovereignty by the likes of della Volpe, Colletti, and Badiou, as well as by anti-colonial movements. This ambivalence can be interpreted as a symptom, within Marxist thought, of a void concerning crucial issues – like political power, democracy, sovereignty, and institutions – which lie at the core of Rousseau’s thought. These questions have become all the more urgent in the current moment of structural de-democratisation, disintermediation of political life, and general absence of constituent political programmes. In this context, Rousseau may invite a rethinking of popular sovereignty against its framing in nationalist and authoritarian terms. Can Rousseau’s thought breathe new life into the revolutionary tradition and contribute to imagining novel forms of radical democracy?

In line with the central theme of this issue of the journal Quaderni Materialisti, we invite contributions that address one or more questions from the following non-exclusive list:

• Rousseau and contemporary theories of radical democracy

• The influence of Rousseau on contemporary radical philosophical and political thought

• New perspectives on the relationship between Rousseau and Marxism

• Rousseau in contemporary emancipatory movements

• Rousseau and political violence

 

Please submit a 300-word abstract (excluding bibliography) by September 15, 2026. Abstracts may be submitted in Italian, English, French, Spanish, and German; if accepted, the final article must be submitted in Italian.

Acceptance of a proposal does not guarantee acceptance of the final article, which will undergo blind peer review.

Proposals should be sent to the following email addresses: stefano.pippa@unimib.it, gianluca.pozzoni@unimib.it