upcoming.issues
current calls for 2012:
/numerus/ guest editor:: Nelly Rosario
vandal wants your number for Issue #3: “Numerus”. In the spirit of Georg Cantor’s set theory—the branch of mathematics that studies collections of objects—vandal is collecting fiction, poetry, essays, photographs, and visual art that provocatively engage the theme of numbers. So what’s the subjective and/or objective nature of numbers? How do numbers manifest in our interactions with the world? How are numbers used in society? What are the hidden/apparent meanings behind them? What are the coordinates of where? How do numbers affect our consciousness? What do they mean in today’s economy, in war, in relationships, in childhood, at home? How many x’s are in y? Who counts, who measures? What are the proportions? By what litmus do we measure? What colors/sounds/smells/sensations/tastes correspond to what numbers? [see full call below]
submit all work for this issue to: numerus@vandaljournal.com
/food: migration & movement/ guest editor:: Ari Ariel
Food is a common and constant variable among us; everyone must eat. vandal is looking for fiction, non-fiction, poetry, essays, photographs, interviews and visual art that engages the theme: food, migration, and movement. We interpret this call as broadly as possible, to include all topics that deal with food/foodways, and migration or political movement(s). The movement of food(s) and people(s) has always intimately connected politics, culture, and identity, marking ‘us’ and ‘them’. Food migrations are surely among the most globally transformative moments in recorded history. Christopher Columbus sailed in search of spices, and sugar was inextricable in the trade triangle that brought so many enslaved Africans to the “New World.” Sugar, coffee and cocoa remain among the most traded commodities worldwide. As food often reflects public policy’s focus, food also becomes the vehicle through which we voice our politics. These expressions can be witnessed in government corn subsidies, hunger strikes, the establishment of local community farms and protests on every continent resulting from rising food prices within the last year. Our options or lack of options in food ultimately effect health and culture. To engage food is to engage the most crucial aspects of all societies.
submit all work for this issue to: foodmigration@vandaljournal.com
/bodies/
BODY [bod-ee] /ˈbɒdi/ noun, bod·ies plural, bod·ied verb, bod·y·ing, adjective
1, 2. refers to the material organism of an individual, human or animal, either living or dead: the body of a victim ( human or animal ). Body, carcass, corpse, cadaver agree in referring to a physical organism, usually human or animal.
3. substance, bulk.
4. mass, group, throng, multitude; bulk,preponderance, majority.
5. an object to be acted upon and used as a vehicle for performance.
6. material to be subjected, used, transformed, and/or improved.
7. the target of power, that which represents the scale of control.
8. the canvas of culture, having only exchange value.
9. material that does not belong to the individual who resides within it.
vandal is looking for work about bodies, defined in any of the above ways. bodies: yours. theirs. ours.
submit all work for this issue to: bodies@vandaljournal.com
more on numerus:
I realise that in this undertaking I place myself in a certain opposition to views widely held concerning the mathematical infinite and to opinions frequently defended on the nature of numbers.—Georg Cantor, German mathematician, inventor of set theory
Oh, how do those objects called “numbers” drive our society, let us count the ways. The combinations of just 10 simple symbols (and fingers) have come to form the lingua franca of the known world, first of many lessons, tracker of time, identity handle, initiator of relationships, annotator of human games, cornerstone of technology, head counter, evaluator, language of mystics, diviner of futures, determinant of bottom lines. Like the devil, The Number appears in many guises and sub-guises: zero, negative, real, hyperreal, superreal, surreal, ordinal, cardinal, imaginary, transcendental, natural, p-adic, computable, rational, irrational, complex…
Outside of its inherent definition, the usage of “number” has metastasized beyond the mathematical and colored our everyday language. The term points to notable pieces in music, in fashion, in dating; we follow standard operating procedures “by the number” and “paint by number;” or we illegally play “the numbers” or “do a number” on people, until we come across someone who “has our number” and then our “number is up”.
It’s perhaps because every person’s days are numbered that the concept of counting and measuring occupies such a great amount of space in our individual and collective minds. Therefore, vandal wants your number for Issue #3: “Numerus”. In the spirit of Georg Cantor’s set theory—the branch of mathematics that studies collections of objects—vandal is collecting fiction, poetry, essays, photographs, and visual art that provocatively engage the theme of numbers.
So what’s the subjective and/or objective nature of numbers? How do numbers manifest in our interactions with the world? How are numbers used in society? What are the hidden/apparent meanings behind them? What are the coordinates of where? How do numbers affect our consciousness? What do they mean in today’s economy, in war, in relationships, in childhood, at home? How many x’s are in y? Who counts, who measures? What are the proportions? By what litmus do we measure? What colors/sounds/smells/sensations/tastes correspond to what numbers?
Georg Cantor will agree that the possibilities in this undertaking are infinite.
to submit, read our guidelines then submit to: submissions@vandaljournal.com
