Call for Papers: Thematic issue of the Journal of Genocide Research (JGR)

“Cultural Genocide”

When Raphael Lemkin coined the term genocide during World War II, he initially had a broader idea of the concept, namely that a group could be effectively destroyed by an attack on its social institutions and cultural heritage, even without the physical obliteration of its members. Since Lemkin, scholars have defined cultural genocide as a form of persecution involving the deliberate destruction of the culture of a people, ranging from violence against material and immaterial culture to assaults on identities of groups. Such destruction is wrought in a variety of ways, typically including restrictions upon of a group’s language and traditions, the use of boarding schools to forcibly assimilate children, the ruination of objects and institutions, and the persecution of political, cultural, intellectual, and religious elites.

History abounds with examples of cultural genocide. The expansion of Europe from 1492 on, for example, can be read as a long process of (un)intended destruction of indigenous cultures on the American and Australian continents. Other examples include the Russian colonization of the Caucasus, Chinese rule in Tibet, the Japanese occupation of Korea, Nazi policies in occupied Poland, Young Turk cultural policies in Eastern Turkey, and the destruction of Islamic architecture in Bosnia. How can cultural genocide be conceptualized? Why do political elites launch policies to eradicate cultures? How effective are these policies? To what degree are processes of nation formation tantamount to cultural genocide?

This thematic issue of the Journal of Genocide Research aims to contribute to our understanding of cultural genocide. The editors welcome original and innovative articles dealing with all possible aspects of cultural genocide. After initial editor screening, all submissions will undergo peer review. Proposals (max 1.5 pages) for papers should be submitted together with a short curriculum vitae by 1 March 2009 both to the editors of the JGR

Dominik J. Schaller (dominik.schaller@uni-heidelberg.de)

Jürgen Zimmerer (j.zimmerer@sheffield.ac.uk)

and to the guest editor

Uğur Ümit Üngör (ugur.ungor@gmail.com)

The articles, which should be a maximum of 8500 words including documentation, will be due on 1 July 2009.

Journal of Genocide Research
http://www.informaworld.com/jgr

International Network of Genocide Scholars
http://www.inogs.com

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Dominik J. Schaller
Historisches Seminar
Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg
Grabengasse 3-5
69117 Heidelberg
Germany
dominik.schaller@uni-heidelberg.de