Memory and Anxiety
Special Collection of Memory, Mind & Media
Call for Abstract Proposals
Special Collection Editors:
Nutsa Batiashvili, Free University of Tbilisi, Tbilisi, Georgia
Meymune N. Topçu, MEF University, Istanbul, Türkiye
James V. Wertsch, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, USA
Anxiety is a silent pandemic in today’s world. It is a disturbance that has spread globally in response to looming threats ranging from Covid-19 to climate change to nuclear war. Anxiety and anxiety disorders are usually discussed as individual phenomena, but in this collection, we propose to expand the discussion to social and cultural dimensions of anxiety. This requires moving beyond disciplinary siloes to explore novel conceptual territory and methodological approaches.
We view anxiety as a form of future thinking without closure, trapped in memory narratives. The idea that anxiety is future oriented, but fueled by memory of the past is a common thread of thought from psychoanalytic to existentialist to cognitive approaches. We propose to expand this effort by examining how these dynamics play out in collectives. Our approach to anxiety and memory builds on existing scholarship in psychology and related fields, but we hope to examine anxiety in its ability to unsettle entrenched narratives about the past that shape group identity and to envision alternative scripts of the future both for individuals and for collectives such as nations.
We open up this collection with a set of papers that addresses questions such as: Is anxiety always a response to existing or looming threats or can we trace its pathways to narrative templates that trigger anxious experiences? For instance, using ethnographic examples from Georgia, one of the papers in this set of papers will demonstrate the role of the “bivocal” (double-voiced) narrative in projecting a nation’s past failures onto the scenarios of the future. If anxiety, as we argue here, is not simply an emotion of worry, but rather a self-orienting condition, what are the affects or feelings that it attaches to? One of the papers in this collection explores Russian identity anxiety in its relation to the historical sense of guilt. Is anxiety fixated on the future alone or does it leap backward in time? When thinking about American’s nuclear fears in the context of the reawakened hostilities between Russia and the West, another paper describes how present anxiety reflects the memory of Cold War era fears. And in the context of Türkiye, yet another article examines pre-election anxieties that re-awaken collective memories of episodes from the past.
We encourage colleagues in the humanities and social sciences to explore these or related issues under the broad heading of anxiety and memory. We will consider any proposals under this heading, but we particularly encourage contributions that address three general questions:
What is anxiety? Anxiety need not be approached only as individual disorder, affect, worry, or feeling of unease directed at an unknown future as it has been conceptualized in the psychological tradition. It can also be defined as an identity orienting force, structuring regimes of memory and future thought in imagined communities based on nationality, religion, life-style choices, or other criteria.
What is it that tells us collectives are anxious? In our view, anxiety is more than the collectively reported feelings of concern or worry. Existing literature tells us that the collective sense of uncertainty results in a “politics of anxiety” (Eklundh et al., 2018), and an experience of unidentified threats (Albertson & Kushner, 2015) that plays out in and is structured by the logics of contemporary media (Grusin, 2010). To complement theses approaches to anxiety, we propose to focus on narrative as a central construct. Both memory and future thought are sites of negotiation and contestation, but how do the ways in which narratives about the past and scripts for the future come into conflict give rise to anxiety? How do contemproary media practices further mediate these conflicts and feed into a sense of collective anxiety? In the initial set of papers, we explore examples from Russia, Turkey, Georgia, and elsewhere to suggest that memory narratives are the main currency of anxiety that unsettles identity (see for instance Batiashvili, 2022). We invite potential contributors to consider other cases to examine the role of media (television, film, and especially social media) in creating and promulgating anxiety.
What is the methodological unit of analysis for capturing anxiety? What would a sociocultural approach to anxiety involve? We focus on how narrative – as a cognitive instrument and a cultural tool – mediates mnemonic and future thought under conditions of anxiety. We propose to explore narratives – and the media through which circulate – that shape anxieties on global and national levels. Anxiety is what transforms collected anxieties into collective anxieties – to borrow a distinction from Jeffrey Olick (2002) about collective memory. We thus propose to explore the narrative conditions of collective anxiety – an analogy to studying the “symptoms” of anxiety disorders in the case of individuals.
Open Call for Proposals for Articles
We invite colleagues to contribute to an interdisicplinary dialogue on anxiety’s comples relationship with memory. In particular, we encourage contributions that build on the themes and questions noted above.
Timeline and procedure
MMM has a rolling submission window. Special collections do not have a finite number of pages and/or contributions. Rather, contributions are accepted on the basis of relevance to the topic and quality. The special collection will not be published as a whole, but each contribution in the collection will flow through the peer review process as soon as possible. The collection will therefore emerge over a period of months and each contribution will be considered separately.
The first step in the process for 500 to 700 word abstracts should be sent to anxietyandmemory@gmail.com by . The abstract should include: 1) the topic discussed and the research question(s) to be answered, 2) the methodological or critical framework used, 3) the expected findings or conclusions and, 4) academic and/or societal relevance.
Decisions will be communicated to authors in early February 2025.
Full invited contributions to be submitted by 1 May 2025.
In addition to traditional research articles, we encourage proposals using other media. The journal facilitates photography and video content, such as video essays or collages.
Feel free to consult with the Special Collection Editors about your article ideas and potential angles or approaches.
Authors whose proposals are accepted will then make paper submissions directly to the submissions portal for Memory, Mind & Media: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mmm where their manuscript will undergo peer review following the usual procedures of