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
