SYNTHESIS 2026, NO. 5
“IDEOLOGIES – MODES OF USE”
Somewhat relegated to the background after the proclamation of the “end of history,” the death of the great foundational narratives, and the praise of “weak thought” (G. Vattimo), ideology – or ideologies – has/have returned in recent years to an interpretive avant-garde, at times bellicose, contextualizing, destabilizing through anachronism or, on the contrary, re-balancing various interpretive scenarios – including literary-cultural and comparative ones. As in the dawn of modernity, when they first emerged (in the context of Western industrialisation and the French Revolution), ideologies come with their own set of dogmas, values, and norms, engaging a wide range of behaviors, commitments, attitudes, and interpretations.
On the other hand, designating systems of thought and a certain ontology, ideology – or ideologies – has/have always been relevant – even if only latently, insidiously: they pertain to the history of ideas, to the history of concepts, and their influence on art (literature, culture) may at times prove devastating, at other times stimulating.
First introduced with a delimiting note by Karl Marx (in his critique of ideology, which he believed to be specific only to the ruling class), ideologies have often acquired, over time, a pejorative connotation. Positioning herself, in a famous essay from the 1960s, “against interpretation,” Susan Sontag rejected precisely the intensely ideological (ideologized) approaches to the work of art (though her stance would later experience some fluctuations). Nevertheless, more neutral approaches have not been lacking, marked by a certain distance (ideologies understood as mechanisms of distortion and legitimation, in Paul Ricoeur’s view) or recuperative ones (ideology understood as a cultural system, in Clifford Geertz’s sense). Paul Ricoeur also placed the great theories or ontological interpretations of modernity under the sign of a “hermeneutics of suspicion” (whose prominent representatives would be Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche), opposing them to a “hermeneutics of trust” (represented, among others, by Mircea Eliade, with his theories of myth). The secular religions of the 20th century, despite their apparent utopianism or imbued with a strong will to domination, may claim their revenge at the beginning of the 21st century, as History did not keep its promises and as all kinds of cultural/political/ecological identities resurfaced in a global race for justice and incarnated truth. Contemporary cultural and political contexts have further renewed these debates, particularly in relation to emerging forms of activist critique, media-driven moral discourse, and institutional contestation. Discussions surrounding polarized public debates, new modes of cultural accountability, and shifting epistemological frameworks invite careful analysis rather than reductive judgment. At the same time, we may ask ourselves, together with Alexandre Gefen, whether ideologies rather than other kind of ethical approaches might “repair the world”.
All across the last century, in art and (literature), ideologies were either rejected or embraced., but freedom of consciousness has always been at the center of debates, all the more as mostly under totalitarian conditions, art had to let itself subordinated by politics (from certain forms of naturalism and positivism to the propaganda associated with National Socialism, Nazism, or, on the other pole, socialist realism). On the other hand, a certain “political unconscious” can be traced, following F. Jameson, in the folds of the work, as a sort of corollary or imaginary projection – unconscious or not fully conscious – of its historical and social context of origin.
Thus, what is the contribution of ideologies to the study of literature and comparative literature? What might their positive role be? What do ideologies leave unsaid or omit? Is everything reducible to ideology? This issue invites contributions that explore ideology as a critical tool, a historical phenomenon, and a contested interpretive category. Rather than presupposing a singular definition or evaluative stance, the volume welcomes plural methodological approaches and comparative perspectives.
We propose the following lines of reflection/analysis:
- Ideology and literature / ideological literature
- Ideology and politics
- Political unconscious and literature
- Ideology and World Literature
- The ideologies of literature / the politics of literature (Jacques Rancière)
- “Weak thought” (G. Vattimo) / “the demon of theory” (Antoine Compagnon)
- “Against interpretation” (Susan Sontag)
- Polarized discourse: “the Woke phenomenon”, “Cancel Culture”
- Ideology and institutions
- The end of ideologies
Please send a brief proposal (10-15 lines), your name and affiliation to both addresses:
synthesis@inst-calinescu.ro and ioana.morosan@inst-calinescu.ro
Length: 4500 – 9000 words (bibliography included)
Deadline for proposals: January 31, 2026.
Authors will be notified by February 15th, 2026.
Deadline for papers: May 31st, 2026.
For full paper submissions, please see Guidelines for Authors – Synthesis