Chiasma: A Site for Thought is an annual, doubly-anonymous, peer-reviewed journal for the generation and dispersion of theory, and invites submissions for its second issue.

One of the enduring themes of 20th century critical thought is that the question of being, far from being too abstract or general to warrant serious consideration, is rather 'the most basic and at the same time most concrete question'. For our second issue, we are looking for perspectives on the status of this questioning, particularly in the form of teaching, professing, lecturing, researching, and/or publishing in the academic institution. Topics for papers could be related, though not limited, to the following themes:

+ The thinking of being and about beings (whether we call this thinking 'philosophy', 'ontology', or today simply 'theory') once constituted an education in what Adorno calls 'the good life'. The moment this thinking is converted into an explicative method it becomes a mode of consumption. Is it possible for the institution of schooling to avoid or mitigate this commodification of theoretical thinking? Further, does education have anything like a unifying concept of 'the good life' any more?

+ In Socratic pedagogy, the 'progress' of the maieutic method is catalyzed by the experience of stultification—of becoming shocked by one's ignorance and by the impenetrability of certain philosophical problems (aporia). Is there room for the aporetic in the contemporary classroom? Do the demands and conventions of scholarly publication allow for speculation untouched by the anxiety of the thetic or positively conclusive?

+ For Montaigne, an education consisted of pursuing the maxim 'know thyself', and the essay was his means to do so. The essay has since become a fundamental component of education, but has it ceased to function as a heuristic for self-knowledge? Has the self's being become the most marginalized form of being in the classroom? Does the allergy to the first person evince schooling's resistance to incorporate the complexity of a student's individual history into the program of education?

+ From the earliest stages of instruction to post-graduate courses, new forms of technology are being incorporated into the pedagogical scene with as-yet uncertain outcomes. What are the strategies available to teachers to deal sensitively with the pharmakon of technology? Do contemporary uses of classroom technology liberate or enframe our thought about beings?

+ Given the accelerating depletion of the planet's natural resources by humans, the continued growth in world population, the increasingly palpable effects of global warming, sustained political instability in several countries and the entrenched poverty of huge portions of the globe, ought we also begin thinking sincerely about the future ­non-being of the human species? Is a committed pedagogy of the apocalypse a viable (and perhaps ethical) strategy for galvanizing thought about being? How can today's education intervene in these haunting problems?

Papers under 7,000 words in length should be submitted by December 1 to chiasma.asiteforthought@gmail.com. For more information, visit www.chiasmaasiteforthought.com.