Echoes of Life and Death: Interdisciplinary and Intermedial Perspectives

estrema: revista interdisciplinar de humanidades, a digital peer reviewed journal from the Centre for Comparative Studies of the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon (CEComp-FLUL), is issuing an open call for articles and critical reviews for the first number of its Volume III until April 30, 2024. The previous volume, consisting of two distinct issues, welcomed contributions that broadly discussed the dichotomy of light/shadow, through an interdisciplinary, comparative, and innovative perspective. Similarly, we now launch this call inspired by a new thematic dichotomy: life/death.

The dynamic between life and death, although opposing, is not necessarily and exclusively dichotomous. While one tends to represent the absence of the other, the coexistence of these two states of being permeates many different aspects of human experience. The inevitability of death hovers over the living, coexisting with the hustle and bustle of daily life in an implicit tension, where the fear of the end dissolves amid everyday tasks and leisure breaks. Its ever-present nature lingers until the moment of confrontation with ephemerality—a transformative encounter, source of inspiration  transcending disciplinary and artistic boundaries.

In The Art of Life and Death: Radical Aesthetics and Ethnographic Practice, Andrew Irving explores this impact through lived experiences, existential questions, and artistic creations by individuals facing their mortality after an HIV/AIDS diagnosis. According to Irving, the main objective of his research was to develop a sociological study around this disruption: “[T]o understand how the world appears to persons who are close to death and who are confronting their own mortality and nonexistence after being diagnosed with a terminal illness” (2017, 1). The confrontation with ephemerality has been particularly fertile in the field of Philosophy, where different schools of thought have sought to bring some meaning to human existence. Jean-Paul Sartre (1946) on existentialism, Albert Camus (1942) addressing absurdism, and Friedrich Nietzsche (1883) in the origins of nihilism are a small sample of this phenomenon. On the other hand, the Philosophy of Death goes beyond this existential tension, seeking to question the concepts of “life” and “death” by emphasising the coexistence of these states: “It is natural to say that to die is to cease to be alive. But there seem to be cases in which a thing ceases to be alive without dying” (Bradley, Feldman, and Johansson 2012, 1).

In the field of Game Studies, these concepts have gained particular prominence as they take on specific contours depending on their ludonarrative implementation, raising questions about the representation of death and the trivialisation of life in the ludic context: “How might one properly render the sense of loss associated with death, for example, when one must also offer the player the possibility to turn back in time and resume their gameplay as if the event had never taken place?” (Melnic and Melnic 2017, 29).Ecocriticism has also presented itself as an essential companion to the life/death dichotomy, providing a unique perspective on the protection of life and the prevention of human, animal, and ecological death through literature. From these literary roots, ecological interpretations of Frankenstein have flourished (Morton 2016), theoretical-methodological proposals for Eco-Film Studies (Ingram 2014), and even perspectives on queer ecology (Seymour 2020).

It is both through opposition and coexistence that this dichotomy proves fruitful in the arts as well. In Deathloop (Arkane Studios 2021), for example, the two protagonists are trapped in a cycle where they relive the same day eternally, positioning themselves in limbo between life and death.We can also consider the mediaeval theme of the Danse Macabre, the dance of death, which drags members of all social classes to the same inevitable fate to the sound of the echo of life’s fragility and perishability (Huizinga 1996, 153). In this context, Death was often represented as a mocking and merciless figure towards humans paralysed with fear, who plead for their lives, as stated by Sophie Oosterwijk: “Many participants of the danse prove [...] that they are ill-prepared for Death, who usually arrives as an unwelcome specter. [...] In general, Death seems to enjoy such reactions and he mocks his victims mercilessly in return” (Oosterwijk 2004, 77). Brueghel’s painting The Triumph of Death (c. 1562) reinterprets this theme centuries later, portraying a vision of chaos and despair with the arrival of death.

Despite the markedly negative and fatalistic discourses that have punctuated narratives about the environmental future, mirroring the chaos proposed by Brueghel, Solarpunk emerges as an artistic and literary movement that envisions a future of hope and harmony between technology, living beings, and nature. Positioning itself as the reverse of the Cyberpunk genre, its productions seek to value all life in a utopian post-industrial imaginary where ecological sustainability is key. Although intermedial in its production, Solarpunk has been particularly fruitful in literature, with notable works such as Ursula K. Le Guin’s Always Coming Home (1985) and Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia (1975).Cultural, artistic, social, linguistic, and other examples are numerous. Death and life are creative powers, sometimes arising from each other, in a cycle that can be both devastating and generative - life brings death; death brings life.

Thus, estrema invites the participation of all students, from any level of higher education, integrated or independent researchers, as well as others interested in exploring the interdisciplinary and interarts possibilities of the life/death dichotomy, encouraging proposals that focus on one of the elements of this dichotomy or the relationship between both.

Possible but not exclusive thematic axes:

●      Death Studies

●      Philosophy of Death

●      Dystopias/Utopias

●      Post-apocalyptic Fiction

●      Ecocriticism

●      Nature

●      Religious Studies

●      Necropolitics

List of References

Bradley, Ben, Fred Feldman, and Jen Johansson, eds. 2012. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Camus, Albert. 1942. L’Étranger. Paris: Éditions Gallimard.

Huizinga, Johan. 1996. O Declínio da Idade Média, translated by Augusto Abelaira. Lisboa: Editora Ulisseia.

Ingram, David. 2014. “Rethinking Eco-Film Studies.” The Oxford Handbook of Ecocriticism, edited by Greg Garrard, 459-474. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Irving, Andrew. 2017. The Art of Life and Death: Radical Aesthetics and Ethnographic Practice. Chicago: Hau Books.

Melnic, Diana, and Vlad Melnic. 2017. “Saved Games and Respawn Times: The Dilemma of Representing Death in Video Games.” University of Bucharest Review VII (2): 29-37. https://ubr.rev.unibuc.ro/past-issues/2008-2021/2017-2/2017-issue-2/.

Morton, Timothy. 2016. “Frankenstein and Ecocriticism.” The Cambridge Companion to Frankenstein, edited by Andrew Smith, 143-157. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. (1883) 2011. Also sprach Zarathustra. Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen. Chemnitz: Verlag von Ernst Schmeitzner. Reprint, Hamburg: Nikol Verlag.

Oosterwijk, Sophie. 2004. “Of Corpses, Constables and Kings: The Danse Macabre in Late Medieval and Renaissance Culture.” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 157 (1): 61-90. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/jba.2004.157.1.61.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1946. L’Existentialisme est un Humanisme. Collection Pensées. Paris: Éditions Nagel.

Seymour, Nicole. 2020. “Queer Ecologies and Queer Environmentalisms.” The Cambridge Companion to Queer Studies, edited by Siobhan B. Somerville, 108-122. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Guidelines 

Submission deadline: April 30, 2024

Notification of accepted papers for peer review: May 15, 2024

Submissions should be sent to: estrema.cecomp@letras.ulisboa.pt

Languages accepted: Portuguese, Spanish, and English.


All submitted contributions must contain the author’s first and last name, email address, academic affiliation, if applicable, and a brief biographical note (maximum of 100 words). In addition, proposals should be in Times New Roman, size 12, spacing 1.5, with a minimum of 4000 words and a maximum of 7000 (including footnotes and list of references). The use of page numbering, indexing, and/or any other type of automated formatting is not allowed.

All citations and references must follow the Author-Date system of The Chicago Manual of Style: 17th Edition.

It is essential that all proposals follow the Author Guidelines, available at http://estrema.letras.ulisboa.pt/ojs/index.php/estrema/about/submissions. Proposals that do not follow these guidelines will be rejected without additional comments.