Anthropocenes –  Human, Inhuman, Posthuman

 

About

Focus and Scope

 

Anthropocenes –  Human, Inhuman, Posthuman's core contributor base and readership will be in the social sciences, arts and humanities although often social and political thought will be applied to aspects of the natural or ‘hard’ sciences. 

Anthropocenes –Human, Inhuman, Posthuman is a global interdisciplinary journal. Moving beyond concerns around global warming and the environment it focuses on diverse theoretical approaches to the anthropocene from social sciences and humanities. The journal is about the invitation to rethink notions such as abstraction, art, architecture, design, governance, ecology, law, politics and discourses of science in the context of human, inhuman and posthuman frameworks.

Categories of submission in addition to peer reviewed research articles (usually 6,000-8,000 words) will be encouraged such as: commentaries (overviews) or interventions (more polemic) on current issues or events or aspects of specialist topics (1,500-3,000 words); insights (pedagogically orientated pieces or practitioner focused); interviews (1,000-1,500 words), visual essays (visually-led texts), audio essays (where mp3 sound files are a key element) as well as book or other reviews (1,000-1,500). We also accept pieces on/as art practices and other creative pieces - short stories, visual essays, poems and so on (practice pieces) as well as submissions that might require some form of digital support.

---

 

Open Access Policy

 

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Authors of articles published remain the copyright holders and grant third parties the right to use, reproduce, and share the article according to the Creative Commons license agreement.

 

---

 

History

An Invitation 

 

Anthropocenes – Human, Inhuman, Posthuman seeks to explore the implications of the Anthropocene from the perspectives of the social and life sciences, arts and humanities. We see the Anthropocene as an invitation to think differently about ways of being in the world and how we operate within, across and beyond our disciplinary framings. We take inspiration from Val Plumwood’s view that the Anthropocene poses the question: ‘Is it to be a posture of openness, of welcoming, of invitation, toward earth others, or is it to be a stance of prejudged superiority, of deafness, of closure?’ At present we feel that there is too little invitation: work on the Anthropocene often seems divided between climate scientists working along technical and managerial lines and, what can come across as, fairly aloof and abstract philosophical approaches. We seek to work to expand the area of Anthropocene work which can often be obscured by this divide; working out from the middle as it were.

For us, the Anthropocene poses questions that go far beyond narrow technical or governmental concerns of how to address issues such as climate change and global warming. While some contributors may, no doubt, be concerned with preventing, slowing or opposing the Anthropocene as a future to come, we hope that others will provide a critical, constructive and exploratory focus upon what it means to live within the Anthropocene as a time in which the certainties of the modernist world are becoming undone. Our desire is that this journal will pursue the open-ended and future-oriented invitations of the Anthropocene through building new cross-disciplinary research communities, facilitated through publishing in an open access format available to all.

We feel that the time is right to establish a world-leading interdisciplinary journal placing the University of Westminster at the centre of contemporary conceptual debates and practices. Drawing upon our unique strengths across diverse fields from the arts and media to the human sciences, via law, architecture and politics, Anthropocenes will engage and work with leading and upcoming international academics and practitioners looking for an interdisciplinary outlet and keen to develop and initiate debate through traditional and non-traditional forms of publication including visual and audio links.