Journal of philosophy, history, and humanities with a historical-materialistic orientation - M-FIL06.

For several decades, studies with a historical-materialistic orientation in the philosophical field have been facing a tough crisis, though similar considerations could be made for the historical field and, more generally, for the humanities. We won't go into the details of the great cultural impact this movement has had in our country here. The line of thought that from Labriola to Gramsci and beyond has reviews the categories of Marxism, bringing them to a genetic relationship with Hegelian dialectics, gave original considerations. Considerations that, after fascism and the Second World War, contributed to modernizing the cultural debate in a country still largely backward on many accounts laying the foundations for its civil and political rebirth.

We consider wrong and instrumental the thesis of a long season of Marxist cultural hegemony, both of those who speak in a nostalgic tone of regret or of those that show the relief of being freed from a creeping ideological dictatorship. It is true though that, by considering Gramscian thoughts on the position of culture in society, the role of intellectuals, and the importance of the consensus dimension in politics, Italian Marxism had a very profound influence that was able to compete on equal terms with other diverse traditions that created a rich and varied national philosophical landscape (from Crocianism to Actionism, from existentialism to Catholic personalism). The Italian Marxism also projected itself to the forefront of the European debate, an was appreciated for the humanistic, historicist, and universalistic – and therefore deeply democratic – inspiration of its thought.

The situation seems to be very different today and this cultural heritage seems to have disappeared: historical materialism is almost gone in the academic world as a tradition of studies. And if there is still a certain “archaeological” reverence towards historical materialism when looking at the past, its scientific dignity is no longer recognized when it comes to the issues of the present.

This is the consequence of the huge historical, political and cultural transformations that have occurred since the end of the Cold War. But this is not enough to explain a phenomenon that also has reasons of a national order. If we look at other countries we see a proliferation of studies, conferences, and initiatives that continue to refer to Marxism explicitly without being forced into cultural self-segregation. Journals like “Rethinking Marxism” in the United States, “Historical Materialism” in Great Britain, “Critica Marxista” in Brazil, the more recent “International Critical Thought” published by the Chinese Academy of Sciences through Routledge, and many others; and all the conferences that every year take place inspired by these journals, that now have become true cultural institutions. These are just some examples that highlight, by contrast, how desolate our national panorama is, especially by looking at the role of cultural leadership that intellectuals like Badiou, Rancière, Balibar, Zizek, Jameson, Harvey, and others play in their national contexts both in the academic and in the public debate.

Apart from individual personalities, historical materialism, or the peculiar version of Italian Marxism, is instead excluded in Italy from major conferences and national research projects. At the same time, almost all the journals that refer to this tradition and whose profile is recognized at the academic and scientific level have disappeared: among the journals recognized by Anvur, we find only "Quaderni Materialisti" published by colleagues from Bicocca University in Milan. Not that there are no other publications that somehow evoke Marx's thought. However, it is not possible in these cases to speak of historical materialism in a strict sense since an inspiration that systematically refers to post-structuralist authors such as Foucault and Deleuze prevails clearly, and together with them, they explicitly propose a polemical deconstruction of the Hegelian tradition.

The intent of the journal we intend to publish is to fill this gap, to offer a reference point for an way of thinking that is still present in the country’s universities and to restore it to a dignity. This is a goal to which we firmly support, recalling the important contribution that the University of Urbino gave in the past to the tradition of Italian historical materialism and, more generally, to the Hegelian-inspired Marxism, following a line of thought that calls out to names like Arturo Massolo, Pasquale Salvucci, Livio Sichirollo, and, more recently, Domenico Losurdo.

The PhD program “Dialectics and the Human World” inherited Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici from Istituto di Studi filosofici e pedagogici provided the following curriculum:

“Dialettica e metodologia del sapere nella tradizione della filosofia classica tedesca e nel materialismo storico”

A curriculum that aimed to renew through the recruitment of new researchers:

“... The study of classical German philosophy and the line of thought that, coming from it, livens up the debate of the 20th century, has always been an important research area for Istituto di Scienze filosofiche e pedagogiche dell'Università di Urbino e poi per il Dipartimento di Studi Umaistici. This work in previous years has achieved recognized results by the national and international scientific community. It is a work that enlightened  significant historical-philosophical and interpretative issues, overcoming old historiographic clichés and often leading to an innovative reading of the overall meaning of the work of philosophers included in the great season from Kant to Fichte, from Hegel to Marx.

In a cultural landscape where – in the name of the postmodern dissolution of the foundation, subject, and idea of truth – the legitimacy of dialectics and the philosophy of history is called into question, it is necessary not to disperse the tradition of studies that this work has accumulated but also to renew and expand it from a rigorous methodological and scientific awareness that reaffirms its theoretical and ideal vitality ..."

For all the reasons above, the journal we intend to create will be called, without any pretense, “Materialismo Storico. Rivista di filosofia, storia e scienze umane”.

The journal will be published biannually and Publication will take place only online using the Open Journal system (a new computer standard for academic publications, that manages the entire editorial process and automatically connected to Scopus and the Philosopers Index) and will be located on the servers of the University of Urbino.

Once issue 0 is published, necessary to obtain the ISSN code, the journal will work according to the procedure provided for international scientific journals, namely through the Calls for Papers method. The value of publications will be estimated through an anonymous review process conducted by two peer reviewers.

The scientific dignity of the journal will be guaranteed by a Scientific Committee chaired by Prof. Domenico Losurdo †.

The Committee includes:

Philosophy José Barata-Moura † (Universidade de Lisboa), Giuseppe Cacciatore (Univ. Federico II di Napoli), Mario Cingoli (Univ. di Milano Bicocca), Roberto Finelli (Univ. Roma III), Francesco Fistetti (Univ. di Bari), Wolfgang Fritz Haug (Historisch-kritisches Wörterbuch des Marxismus HKWM), Giacomo Marramao (Univ. Roma III), Nicola Panichi (Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa), Stefano Petrucciani (Univ. La Sapienza di Roma), João Quartim de Moraes (Universidade Estadual de Campinas, SP, Brasil), Jan Rehmann (Union Theological Seminary, New York), Tom Rockmore (Univ. di Pechino), Bernard Taureck (Universität Braunschweig) André Tosel (Univ. de Nice Sophia Antipolis), Claudio Tuozzolo (Univ. di Chieti-Pescara).

History Angelo d’Orsi (Univ. di Torino), Francesco Germinario (Fondazione “Luigi Micheletti” di Brescia), Marina Montesano (Univ. di Messina), Gianpasquale Santomassimo (Univ. di Siena), Anna Tonelli (Univ. di Urbino).

Pedagogy Massimo Baldacci (Univ. di Urbino).

Economic Disciplines Riccardo Bellofiore (Univ. di Bergamo), Guglielmo Forges Davanzati (Univ. del Salento).

Legal and Historical-Legal Disciplines Antonio Cantaro (Univ. di Urbino), Federico Martino (Univ. di Messina).

The journal will be sponsored by the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici. Moreover, it will work together with the Internationale Gesellschaft Hegel-Marx für dialektisches Denken, which has been on the international scene since the mid-1980s, and with the International Gramsci Society, the most important worldwide association for Gramscian studies.

The editor-in-chief of the journal will be Prof. Anna Tonelli.

The scientific director will be Stefano G. Azzarà, while Fabio Frosini will be co-editor and responsible for international contacts.

The first practical goal of the journal will be to be included among the scientific journals recognized by Anvur and the main national philosophical associations (at first at least in the MFIL06 sector) and aims, after having followed the necessary growth path, to achieve inclusion in Fascia A journals. With this goals declared, its publication - open to all proposals for collaboration - aims to contribute to the enrichment of the cultural heritage and the scientific prestige of the University of Urbino and the Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici.

Stefano G. Azzarà; Fabio Frosini

Editorial policies

Peer Review Process

Contributions will be collected through a public call for papers.

Each contribution will be anonymously reviewed by two reviewers, according to the peer review method. Reviewers will evaluate the text’s interest and its relevance to the journal’s objectives. In event the two reviewers disagree, the text will be given to a third reviewer.

Texts can also be published by invitation. In this case, essays will not undergo peer review but will be evaluated directly by the editorial team and an editorial note will inform readers.

Reviews are not subjected to peer review but they evaluated directly by the editorial team.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides open access to its contents, believing that freely available researches promote global knowledge exchange.

No article processing charges and no article submission charges.

Materialismo storico does not require any payment from authors for the publication of articles: both review and publication are entirely free.

Ethical Code

Materialismo Storico is inspired by the principles of the ethical code of publications developed by COPE (Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors), binding for the bodies of the journal, the referees, and the authors.

Sponsors

• Internationale Gesellschaft Hegel-Marx für dialektisches Denken
• Istituto italiano per gli studi filosofici

History of the journal

The journal was founded in 2016 on the initiative of Domenico Losurdo, Stefano G. Azzarà, and Fabio Frosini.