We invite proposals from the international research community for a Special Collection on Collective Future Thinking at Times of War and Conflict. 

The world today is filled with uncertainty escalated by wars and conflicts, both those ongoing and those threatening to erupt. While military and other violent conflicts are raging in various regions, conflicts stemming from uprisings, reciprocal tariffs, legal challenges over policy actions (e.g., deportations), battles over commemoration, and so on are also mounting. How people anticipate in this context what is to happen in their collective future, namely collective future thinking, has critical implications for individuals and societies, ranging from mental health to civic engagement to national and foreign policymaking to peace intervention. Collective future thought thus holds potentially paramount consequences for how things may transpire in the future.

While a growing body of research has started to examine collective future thinking and its contributing factors, it is often disconnected from real-life contexts and issues such as the impact of war and conflict. This timely Special Collection seeks to understand anticipatory processes at times of global challenges and stimulate research interest in questions of real-world significance to the futures of people and society.

We call for submissions that examine the ways that people imagine the collective future in the face of war and conflict that is taking place in their own country, region, or on the global stage. We welcome empirical articles that use rigorous methods to investigate how people think about the collective future before, during, and/or after a war or conflict, the individual (e.g., beliefs, political affiliations) and societal factors (e.g., culture, country involvement in conflict) that influence future anticipations, the role of media and other forms of communication, the relation between collective past and future cognitions, and the consequences of future anticipation for attitudes and behaviors towards conflict resolution and other societal/global issues. We also welcome commentaries, particularly by interdisciplinary teams. Articles presenting interdisciplinary perspectives and perspectives from non-Western traditions are encouraged. Submissions must make theory-driven, novel, and rigorous contributions to our understanding of the anticipatory processes concerning the collective future in a world of uncertainty and challenges.

Timeline and procedure 

MMM has a rolling submission window. Contributions are accepted on the basis of relevance to the topic and quality. Each contribution to the Special Collection will immediately go through the peer review process and be published upon acceptance. The collection will therefore emerge over a period of months. 

Interested authors should submit a proposal to memorycambridge@gmail.com by September 30, 2025. The proposal should include:

1. tentative title
2. brief description (500 words or less) of the proposed submission
3. brief explanation (50 words or less) of how the proposed submission makes a unique contribution to our understanding of the anticipatory processes concerning the collective future at times of global challenges
4. names and affiliations of all anticipated authors
5. contact information of the corresponding author

Decisions regarding the proposals will be communicated to authors in early November 2025.

Invited full manuscript submissions will begin on January 1, 2026, and continue until the Special Collection concludes.

Feel free to consult with the Special Collection Editors about your article ideas and potential angles or approaches. Questions concerning the deadlines or other submission-related issues should also be addressed to the Special Collection Editors, via memorycambridge@gmail.com

Authors whose proposals are accepted will make paper submissions directly to the submissions portal for Memory, Mind & Media: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mmm where their manuscript will undergo peer review following the usual procedures of the journal. The invitation to submit a full article does not guarantee acceptance into the Special Collection. The individual articles for this Special Collection will be published usually within two months following completion of successful peer review.

Special Collection Editors

• Qi Wang, Cornell University, USA
• Jeremy Yamashiro, University of California at Santa Cruz, USA
• Piotr Szpunar, University at Albany, SUNY, USA