In recent years, an overt turn back towards the domain of the real has occurred in the arts, with efforts in this direction being witnessed in the visual arts, in music, and in literature alike. In parallel, the status of reality within our linguistic, emotive, and cognitive practices continues to provoke a heated debate among philosophers. Instead of such answers as might be supplied by rigid philosophical paradigms, it seems to us that the debate over the status of reality demands an open dialogue and the contribution of diverse modes of enquiry and reflection. 

Argument

In recent years, an overt turn back towards the domain of the real has occurred in the arts, with efforts in this direction being witnessed in the visual arts, in music, and in literature alike. In parallel, the status of reality within our linguistic, emotive, and cognitive practices continues to provoke a heated debate among philosophers.

Instead of such answers as might be supplied by rigid philosophical paradigms, it seems to us that the debate over the status of reality demands an open dialogue and the contribution of diverse modes of enquiry and reflection. Focussing primarily on realism in the arts (ranging from the visual arts to cinema, music, literature, etc.), we wish to approach the issue of realism from the angle of aesthetics and of the theories and criticism of art and literature, as well as in the light of the mutual contributions of philosophy and the sciences (which recently appear to have taken a new turn, as in the instance of the non-restrictive paradigm of cognitive processes with which neuroscience is currently engaged).

Contributions on the following topics are thus especially welcomed:

1. The theoretical, philosophical, and scientific status of realism;
2. Transformations in the notion of realism in the wake of the demise of strong ideologies and of the crisis of postmodernity;
3. The real as experienced in the new media and in multimedia practices;
4. The notion of mimesis in the light of emerging trends in the representation of reality;
5. Realism as historical and political documentation, and as ethical or political claim;
6. Developments in the arts arising from the need to narrate contemporary reality, and as reformulation of traditional artistic modes (as in the graphic novel, in street art, etc.) 

Timeline

December 31, 2016 : Receipt of proposals

• January 15, 2017 : Acceptance of proposals and response to prospective contributors
• May 15, 2017 :Handing in of the finished contributions for blind peer review
• May 31, 2017 : Forwarding of reviewer’s comments
• June 30, 2017 : Handing in of revised contributions, Receipt of contributions by guest contributors
• July 31, 2017  Closure of the issue 

Submission guidelines

Maximum paper length: 30,000 characters

Languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish

Editor

Pietro Montani, Professor of Aesthetics, Faculty of Humanites and Philosophy, “Sapienza” University of Rome