Call for Papers :Thematic focus of the issue: #Evolutionary Aesthetics – #Aesthetic #Evolutions: Posthumanist Explorations with #Darwin-#TRANSPOSITIONES- new interdisciplinary biannual #peer-reviewed journal

 

Interdisciplinary Research Project “Non-Anthropocentric Cultural Subjectivity”

Coordinator: Prof. Paweł Piszczatowski

TRANSPOSITIONES

Zeitschrift für transdisziplinäre und intermediale Kulturforschung /

Journal for Transdisciplinary and Intermedial Culture Studies

ISSN 2749-4128 (print), 2749-4136 (online)

https://transpositiones.uw.edu.pl/en

Vol. 4, No. 1 (2025)

In the humanistic discourse of the 21st century, primarily where it tests its own limits and seeks a transdisciplinary opening, the work of Charles Darwin is an important point of reference. It is enough to mention Jane Bennett’s book Vibrant Matter (2010) which  is fundamental for posthumanist research, and in which the author discusses in detail Darwin’s concept of the “small agency” of

worms or the monograph by Polish researcher Justyna Schollenberger Stworzenia Darwina. O granicy człowiek–zwierzę (2020).

In the context of the planned issue, the book Wozu Kunst? Ästhetik nach Darwin by the German comparatist Winfried Menninghaus (2011; English translation Aesthetics after Darwin: The Multiple Origins and Functions of the Arts, 2019) seems to be of particular importance.

According to Menninghaus Darwin was the first to explain the parallels between human and animal arts of singing and self-adornment using a general evolutionary model of aesthetic representation. Menninghaus presents Darwin’s reflections as an essential approach to a theory of arts that, in addition

to music, also includes rhetoric, poetry, and the visual arts. Menninghaus reads Darwin’s remarks against the background of today’s knowledge in archeology and evolutionary biology as well as in the light of philosophical and empirical aesthetics and complements Darwin’s analysis by examining the role of gaming behavior, technology, and symbolic practices in the hypothetical transformation of sexual courtship practices into human arts.

Based also on other concepts of evolutionary aesthetics, evolutionary musicology, Darwinian literary studies, and new-materialistic reading methods we will try to consider the possibilities for understanding human artifacts that may result from their diffractive view through the prism of Darwinian concepts. 

Proposals comprising a 250-word abstract in English or German and a brief

biographical note should be sent to: transpositiones@uw.edu.pl by April 30,

2024.

A decision will be made regarding the final selection by May 10.

Deadline for submitting completed manuscripts: September 30, 2024.

The issue is expected to be published in spring 2025.

Publication language: English and German.

TRANSPOSITIONES is a new interdisciplinary biannual peer-reviewed journal

correlated with the topics of the project “Non-Anthropocentric Cultural Subjectivity” realized as part of the Research Excellence Initiative at the University

of Warsaw primarily oriented towards interdisciplinary publications addressing

issues of posthumanist theories of the late anthropocene. It is published by the

German publishing house Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (imprint of BRILL

Deutschland GmbH).

More information: https://transpositiones.uw.edu.pl/en

Call For Papers: Cute #Ecologies: a critical-creative Symposium 7th June 2024 Online (Zoom)

 Hosted by AWW-STRUCK, this day of lightning talks and presentations on critical research and creative practice features a roundtable conversation between invited speakers (confirmed):

• Miranda Lowe (principal curator of Crustacea at the Natural History Museum London).
• Claire Catterall (curator of Cute at Somerset House, London)
• Hugh Warwick (author of Beauty in the Beast and spokesperson for The British Hedgehog Preservation Society)

Encountering cute forms of nature, from bunnies and hedgehogs to monkeys and deer, is an everyday experience for most of us. They appear on tea towels, cakes and images gone viral on social media. The cute nonhuman might even be our companion animal. The apparently simple, benign nature of cuteness means it goes unexamined, especially in the context of the environmental crisis where the aesthetic is likely to appear irrelevant, if not irreverent. This symposium challenges such thinking by asking: Can cuteness prompt care-giving behaviour for environments? What power dynamics exist in the ‘cutification’ of flora and fauna? What fate for ‘uncute’ species? 

Recent developments in cute studies demonstrate the power of cute to increase pro-social and pro-environmental behaviours. Conservation charities know as much, employing the cutest species to drive public donation. However, the bias toward charismatic megafauna is also known to be a problem. Anthropomorphism and domestication emerge again and again in our encounters with the nonhuman. And perhaps ourselves. As cute studies scholar Joshua Paul Dale recently suggested, Homo sapiens may well have emerged because women preferred cuddlier companions to cavemen. 

We welcome papers that address topics through critical research and/or through creative practice (poetry, film, performance, music, visual artwork). Topics or areas of research may include:

• Animal studies and plant studies
• Childhood culture and children’s geography
• Charismatic megafauna 
• Domestication and scale
• Conservation science and political ecology
• Popular culture, Disney studies, anime and manga studies
• Commodification, material objects and waste
• Technology, cyborgs and artificial intelligence 

Possible formats include: 5-minute lightning talks, 20-minute presentations.

Please submit abstracts and/or short proposals (300 words max), telling us whether you’d like to give a lightning talk or presentation to awwstruck.info@gmail.com by 19 April 2024. Please include a short bio (100 words max). If you are a creative practitioner, please include two samples of your work.

This event is organised by Dr Isabel Galleymore (University of Birmingham) and Caroline Harris (Royal Holloway, University of London) who founded AWW-STRUCK in 2021. This symposium is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UK Research and Innovation.

Attachments

aww-struck-cute-ecologies-cfp-2-240419.pdf