Description
First published during 2015, the journal Critical Military Studies is a scholarly outlet documenting research focusing on the critical complexities of military institutions, including - but not limited to - their imperatives, practices, personnel, and the blurring of such through various influences taking place in quotidian settings and beyond. Against this backdrop, its overarching aim has been to ‘challenge military power.’ Although research of this nature had been underway in earnest decades prior to its publication, the journal has become a key point of reference for previously disparate interdisciplinary scholarship, critically discussing military-related issues. Since the journal’s publication, the acronym ‘CMS’ now has an established place in the academic lexicon, providing scholars engaged in critical debates regarding military issues with a shorthand to describe the tenor of their work, determine intellectual and methodological positions, create networks, and instruct their students. Yet, despite the critical intentions of such activity since 2015, rather less time has been spent articulating the meaning of ‘criticality’ in relation to the intellectual project of CMS, and, by association, assessing if the foundational brief of this aspect of academia has been successfully pursued to-date. Given that we are approaching the tenth year of its publication, this panel is part of an attempt to open the floor to such discussions in order that we might take stock of ‘critical military studies’, as a publication, a community of practice, and an intellectual project.
