Materialities of Thinking
Call for Submissions:
Materialities of Thinking
In recent years, Affect Theory, the New Materialism, and the progressive politics so often attached to these forms of thinking have productively taken us outside of ourselves to think the object, ecology, geological histories, planetary matters, and so on. Yet humanist agency and value tends to creep back in despite the best of intentions. Mosaic invites innovative and interdisciplinary submissions on Materialities of Thinking that address such limit cases as well as escape this capture. As a collaboration between an art historian and a philosopher, this project concerns itself with ways of thinking which materialize beyond the purview of consciousness and the defaults of our cognitive ecologies. We are especially interested in strands of thinking where the “guiding thread of the body” (Nietzsche) departs from the values of humanism and the hungry dialectics of embodiment and personhood. In addition to reflection on the heterogeneous temporalities which produce human, animal and plant populations and their network of interactions, we suggest that material thinking calls for critical engagement with the repurposing of biology as technology and its rapid re-engineering of the natural. Now more than ever, policing the discursive thresholds of our interest in a non-humanist vocabulary is itself one of the key challenges for thinking about nature and the body in our rapidly changing world. What kind of vocabulary is proper to articulating our immanent activity in the world? Can we move beyond the tensions that emerge between progressive politics grounded in embodied thinking and the values of identity politics? Where does one look for examples to follow? We invite contributions in philosophy, science, literature, Indigenous Studies, environmentalism, Affect Theory, the New Materialism, and grass roots activism.
Mosaic follows an electronic submission process. If you would like to contribute an essay for review, please visit our website for details: https://mosaic.umanitoba.ca/common/submit. Email any submission questions to mosasub@umanitoba.ca. Submissions must be received by: APRIL 30, 2024.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: We welcome submissions that conform to our mandate.
r Essays may be in English or French and must represent innovative thought (either in the form of extending or challenging current critical positions). Mosaic does not publish fiction, poetry, or book reviews.
r Mosaic publishes only original work. We will not consider essays that are part of a thesis or dissertation, have been published previously, or are being considered for publication in another journal or medium.
r Preferred length of essays is 7,000 words, to a maximum of 7,500 words. Parenthetical citations and works cited must follow the conventions of the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing (3rd ed.)or MLA Handbook (8th ed.). Essays may feature illustrations.
r Mosaic’s anonymous peer-review process requires that no identifying information appear on the electronic version of the essay itself. Submissions that meet our requirements are sent to specialists in the specific and general area that an essay addresses. Anonymous but complete transcripts of the readers’ reports are sent to the author.
Address inquiries by email to:
Dr. Shepherd Steiner, Editor
University of Manitoba, 208 Tier Building
Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3T 2N2 Canada
Email: mosasub@umanitoba.ca
Submissions: Submit online at mosaic.umanitoba.ca/common/submit.