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Call for Pitches for HUMOUR

Event Details

Date

16 Jan 2020

C146—SUMMER 2020

Accepted until: January 16, 2020 *

C Magazine is accepting pitches for features and reviews for Issue 146, HUMOUR (Summer 2020). * Review pitches (not thematic) are accepted on a rolling basis until January 30.

You know the physical, psychological, spiritual effects of a good, hard laugh; the deep satisfaction that comes from a perfectly tuned work of satire; and the perspective that can be granted by finding an ability to chuckle at a problem beyond your control. Humour, in its infinite manifestations, has been a tool in contemporary art throughout its history, cropping up across all media. In light of today’s incessantly apocalyptic discourse—which tends to crudely suggest that there will be a distinct cleaving of the troubled present from an even more troubled future—we’re curious about practices that use comedy, absurdity, and illogic to attune audiences to the funny, playful, and weird underbelly of life as we know it, and as we might imagine it. Humour can prompt relief, connection and joy, and help us experience total senselessness, just as it can function as a powerful rhetorical device, enriching our ability to process the trials and tribulations of life in late-capitalism; rife with inequity, precarity, political corruption, polarization, and violence. How are artists using humour as a wilful instrument of resistance, transgression, and critique? How is it employed as a tactic to cultivate forms of engagement that expand one’s conception of reality? Can humour’s ability to soften, calm, and rehumanize us make us more capable in our roles as agents of change? How might humour be used to confront the uncomfortable reality that, sometimes, institutional critique gets caught in a feedback loop or breeds negativity? Can we embrace humour unto itself, unrelated to notions of progress, in this time of such high stakes? How does the sliding of artistic discourse and critical thought into more immediate, colloquial, social platforms invite new frameworks, styles, and affects for critique?

  • Thematic feature pitches are due January 16. Review pitches are accepted on a rolling basis until January 30. First drafts are due March 10. Reviews may or may not be related to the theme.

Send pitches to editor@cmagazine.com, with a subject line that starts with the word PITCH and goes on to indicate the submission type (feature essay, interview, or review, for example) as well as your subject and intended word count.

Please see our submission and writer’s guidelines for more information.

Previous call for pitches: Issue 145 on CRITICISM, AGAIN