Call for Reviewers: Nationalism, War & Sacrifice

Dear Colleague,

In the Spring of 2012, we did a Call for Papers for our edited volume, Nationalism, War and Sacrifice: Dying for One's Country—and received well over one-hundred proposals. Eight papers have been accepted for publication.

The development of the volume is now in full swing. Each author has submitted a Working Paper—that will serve as the basis for a Chapter.

Below is a list of these papers, as well as a brief write-up of each. You may click the title to read a one-page summary that appears on the Library of Social Science website.

CALL FOR REVIEWERS

We seek reviewers of these papers to provide conceptual and editorial input. If you possess expertise or special knowledge on the topics of any of the papers, please write to me about receiving a copy of the Working Paper. You may reply directly to this email or write to me at oanderson@libraryofsocialscience.com.

For selected reviewers, Library of Social Science will:

Provide a free copy of the volume once it is published.
Consider including the commentary in the final version of the book.
Invite reviewers to join the Editorial Board of Library of Social Science.

We are very excited about this publication, which will provide a synthesis of the latest research and thinking on the dynamics of nationalism, and sacrificial meaning of war.

We look forward to your feedback and participation. We hope you will contribute to this important project.

Best regards,
Orion Anderson

Orion Anderson
Managing Editor | Library of Social Science
Telephone: (718) 393-1104
Fax: (413) 832-8145
oanderson@libraryofsocialscience.com

Nationalism, War and Sacrifice: Dying for One’s Country Papers Accepted for Publication
Yael S. Feldman New York University	Dying for the Motherland: Orthodox Christianity and the Invention of “Isaac” as a Jewish Military Hero Yael Feldman analyzes the secularization of the Biblical myth of Isaac’s sacrifice in the history of modern Israel. She argues that Jewish nationalism has been unable to invent a political language that separates the secular from the domain of the sacred.
Akio Kimura Meiji University	“Mishima’s Negative Political Theology: Dying for the Absent Emperor” This paper examines how the suicide of Mishima Yukio reflected his understanding of the divinity of the Japanese Emperor. Mishima’s interpretation of the Emperor’s divine status, Kimura says, sheds light on Japanese sacrificial deaths in World War II.
Gregory Lobo Universidad de los Andes	Spectacular Nationism in Colombia: Making War Make Sense While it may be sufficient for social scientists to understand the nation as an ‘imagined community’, no one, Gregory Lobo says, would kill or die for such a thing. This paper examines the ongoing media campaign to recruit martyrs for the Colombian nation.
Nancy Rupprecht Middle Tennessee State University	“Live faithfully, fight bravely, die laughing”: The Behavioral Socialization of German Boys in the pre-war Hitler Youth Nancy Rupprecht discusses the Reich Youth Leadership’s personality profile for German boys—that created enthusiastic and obedient future soldiers for the Third Reich. She argues that willingness to live and die on command transformed German boys into political and military soldiers.
Ivan Strenski University of California, Riverside	Sacrifice: Bad Math, Bad Grammar Strenski deconstructs the “bad math” and “bad grammar” of sacrifice. Sacrifice means loss, giving up, destruction and, in many cases, death. But, characteristically, discourse promoting sacrifice talks as if losses are in reality gains – a case of “addition by subtraction.”
Chiaki Takagi University of North Carolina, Greensboro	The Sacrifice of Women to Uniformed Men: Imperial Japan’s Comfort-Women Rape as a Wartime Cult This paper compares men’s sacrifice for the nation on the battlefield with women’s role in sexually comforting soldiers. Tagaki shows that sacrificing for the nation was the basis of the emperor cult, asking young men to die, and using women’s bodies to comfort soldiers.
Michael Vlahos United States Navy War College	Rites of Spring: War and Human Sacrifice Michael Vlahos argues that humans have responded to consciousness of death by creating constructs of alternative promise. He takes a critical stance towards modern warfare, suggesting it has been ruthlessly self-destructive precisely because of its perverse romantic quest to recreate the primitive ideal of national unity.
Pingchao Zhu University of Idaho	Mao’s Martyrs: Revolutionary Heroism, Sacrifice, and China’s Tragic Romance of the Korean War Looking at the Korean War, Pingchao Zhu shows how the Chinese Communist Party upheld the tradition of revolutionary martyrs giving their lives for communist China. Zhu claims that communists enshrined the ideal of revolutionary—rather than individual—heroism, creating a wartime culture of patriotism and sacrifice.