Call for Papers
Nonevents: Silence, Invisibility, and the Politics of “Nothing Happened”
Proposed edited volume

Editors
Elizabeth Lozano, Loyola University Chicago (elozano@luc.edu)
Margaret Berg, University of Northern Colorado (margaret.berg@unco.edu)

We invite autoethnographic chapter proposals for an interdisciplinary edited volume tentatively titled Nonevents: Silence, Invisibility, and the Politics of “Nothing Happened” which develops the concept of the nonevent as a critical lens for exploring violence, power, and invisibility in contemporary societies.

This proposed volume is inspired by Lozano (2025) and begins with the observation that many forms of violence never fully enter the historical or public record. Instead, they are neutralized through practices of oppression, subordination, bureaucratic erasure, or social silencing. These incidents are often dismissed through a seemingly banal yet deeply telling phrase: “nothing happened.”

We put forward the concept of nonevents to describe these invisibilized incidents whose occurrence is denied, minimized, or rendered unspeakable (Lozano, 2025). The phrase nothing happened functions not merely as a description but as a discursive mechanism that limits narrative possibility, regulates subjects, and condemns lived experiences to nonexistence. In this sense, nonevents reveal the politics of what counts as an event, whose experiences are legible, and how structures of power determine the boundaries of the sayable and the visible.

At the same time, the concept of nonevents also opens another discursive horizon. Naming nonevents allows us not only to expose forms of violence that have become normalized or habitual, but also to recognize acts of resistance, solidarity, and nonviolent action that have been dismissed as insignificant, trivial, or inconsequential.

The volume therefore seeks to theorize nonevents as a site of critical intervention, bringing together scholars working across disciplines to explore how silencing, invisibility, and narrative exclusion shape the social life of violence and resistance.

Scope of the Volume
We welcome contributions from fields including (but not limited to):
• Anthropology
• Cultural studies
• Media and film studies
• Education and curriculum studies
• Political theory
• Sociology
• History and memory studies
• Gender and sexuality studies
• Latin American and postcolonial studies
• Critical race studies
• Peace and conflict studies
• Science and technology studies

Consistent with our interest in interdisciplinary, creative, and theoretically innovative work, we welcome contributions that engage autoethnography in all its varieties, from evocative to analytical and from collaborative to fictional (Adams, Holman Jones, & Ellis, 2022)

Potential autoethnographic contributions may address questions such as:
• How do institutions, archives, and media produce nonevents through silence or erasure?
• What discursive mechanisms allow violence to be framed as “nothing happened”?
• How do bureaucratic, legal, or administrative systems produce official non-events?
• In what ways do gendered, racialized, or colonial power structures shape what counts as an event?
• How do everyday practices normalize forms of violence that become habitual and socially invisible?
• What are the affective and psychological consequences of having one’s experience rendered a nonevent?
• How can naming nonevents contribute to memory, justice, and recognition?
• How might acts of nonviolent resistance, care, or solidarity be dismissed as trivial yet hold transformative political significance?
• What methodological approaches allow scholars to study silence, absence, and invisibility?

Submission Guidelines
Interested authors are invited to submit an email of interest (followed by):
• An abstract of 300–500 words
• 3-5 keywords
• A brief biographical note (100–150 words)

Abstracts should clearly outline the chapter’s argument, methodological approach, and contribution to the concept of nonevents.

Selected authors will be invited to submit full chapters of approximately 5,000–7,000 words.

Timeline
Email of Interest: June 15, 2026; provide a tentative idea or full abstract to the editors
Final Abstract submission deadline: December 15, 2026
Notification of acceptance: February 15, 2027
Full chapter submission: August 15, 2027

Contact
Please send abstracts and inquiries to:
Elizabeth Lozano (elozano@luc.edu) and Margaret Berg (margaret.berg@unco.edu)

Aim of the Volume
By foregrounding the concept of nonevents, this volume seeks to offer an experiential, theoretical and methodological intervention into debates about violence, visibility, and recognition. The project aims to illuminate the social, cultural, political and epistemological stakes of what societies render visible or invisible—and to examine how naming nonevents may open new possibilities for critical scholarship, memory, and social transformation.

References
Adams, Holman Jones, & Ellis (2022). Handbook of Autoethnography. (2nd Ed.). Routledge.

Lozano, E. (2025). Nothing Happened: An Autoethnography of Nonevents and Screaming Resistance. The Journal of Autoethnography 6 (3):313–329. https://doi.org/10.1525/joae.2025.6.3.313