Editor's Note

In this issue, my co-editor, Sophia McClennen from Penn State University, and I sought contributions that engage the potentially paradoxical relations among violence, politics and ethics. We both thought that this topic would yield a rich set of theoretical inquiries, and aimed to include work that engaged the politics and philosophy of violence. The result is a wonderfully diverse set of interventions on violence that balance classical (Aristotle, Machiavelli), modern (Marx, Lenin) and contemporary (Derrida, Žižek) accounts of violence against current events ranging from the Tucson shootings and Arab Spring to prison brutality and ecological devastation. While many of the essays explore the different forms of violence brought about through neoliberal politics, this is not the only political dimension brought to bear in these essays, particularly when one considers violence through the lens of the writings of Saul Bellow, Marguerite Duras, Binjamin Wilkomirski, and Frédéric Beigbeder.

Overall, the essays in this issue strike a balance among close-reading, philosophical examination, and cultural analysis—and in the process raise many important issues about the rhetorical, aesthetic, political, social, and philosophical aspects of violence. As we move into our twenty-first year of publication, it is interesting to note that the topical issues addressed by this journal have become only more urgent. While the divisive disciplinarity of the academy that this journal aimed to help break down still stands strong, and the humanities are much worse for the wear twenty years later, the need for "a journal for the intermingling of literary, cultural and theoretical scholarship" is even more urgent today than it was when symploke was founded in the early 1990s. Nevertheless, there is a prevailing concern that journals such as this one may be going the way of the dinosaur—or, the philology journal.

In his October 16, 2011 article for The Chronicle Review, "The Brief, Wondrous Life of the Theory Journal," Jeffrey J. Williams observes that "the theory journal is becoming a residual form, like the philological journals." Williams, who has been a long-time advocate and supporter of this journal—and is a contributor to this issue—is confronting the realities faced by many journals weaned on opulent university support and topical intransigence. Fortunately, though, these were not the formative conditions of this journal.

Not only is our financial health better now than at any time in our history, so too is our reach because of our international online presence through Project Muse. In addition, we have dedicated ourselves to publishing material that keeps pace with—or better yet, set the pace for—discussions in the humanities. Philology journals disappeared when philology lost impact. And while theory is definitely not what it was when this journal was founded (which, personally, I think is a good thing—but that is another story), there has been no diminution of interest in the broader frame established by symplokē, namely, the intermingling of literary, cultural and theoretical scholarship.

As such, looking back at twenty years of continuous publication—and looking forward to where this journal is going—does not give me a "residual" feeling, but rather an "emergent" one. The proviso though is that we continue to embrace the intermingling of critical theory, literary analysis and cultural studies not merely as ends in themselves—but rather first and foremost as a means of addressing the complex problems currently facing academe, society, and our planet. When this journal loses site of the critical present and its academic, social, and planetary obligations—its days will be numbered—and it truly will have no future.

It is with these thoughts in mind that the following three issues are in preparation. The first is entitled Critical Climate (Vol. 21, No. 1 [2013]). Welcome are contributions that critically explore the discursive shape and texture of what we call climate change. Specifically, we begin with the premise that climate change asks of cultural theorists nothing more or less than a re-evaluation of ourselves, even while it challenges us to put to use the critical tools we have at hand. We ask: How do critical concepts like power, ideology, mediation, capital, colonialism, gender...