CfP Inscriptions 6n1: Access and the danger of modern technology

2022-04-22

Discussions around modern technology have often been divided sharply between the techno-optimists (“there will be a technological solution to climate change, poverty, miscommunication, etc.”) and techno-realists or pessimists. In the latter category we prominently count Martin Heidegger, who famously warned against the “danger” of modern technology, claiming that we stood on the threshold of an era where our own inventions, our technologies, were about to turn their inventors, us, into their own tools.

In an upcoming special issue Inscriptions, a peer-reviewed journal for contemporary thought on philosophy, psycho-analysis, and the arts, seeks to address this conundrum by inviting contributions that interrogate or seek to resolve questions such as

The “danger” of modern technology: In what does this danger consist, and in what sense can technological innovations such as Deep Learning and Artificial Intelligence contribute to develop our understanding of Heidegger’s notion of technological enframing (Gestell)?
Technological solutions: touted as offering answers to difficulties ranging from political oppression to climate change technology, tends to be regarded as a neutral tool that is only made meaningful or indeed efficient through use. What are the philosophical, psychoanalytical, or artistic implications or limitations to such approaches to technology, and how does technologies such as open access generate (and to what extent is this notion generated by) ideals such as justice and equality?
Technologies of war and truth: In his critique of Heidegger Wolfgang Schirmacher suggests that the limit of the former’s approach to technology consists in that it reduces all technicity to a state of danger, defence, and protection, or what Schirmacher refers to as technologies of war. Against this he offers technologies of truth, included among which are the entirety of our technological, embodied apparatuses, such as our ability to and dexterity at breathing and eating. Rightly considered, technologies generate our harmonious relation to a mysterious Cosmos. How can technological redefinitions, such as Schirmacher’s, enable us to move beyond Heidegger’s “danger” of modern technology and prepare the ground for a cosmic access that is open?

We welcome academic essays and creative criticism, as well as commentaries that adhere to our editorial policies.

Submission instructions

Academic essays should be 3,000 to 4,500 words. We also welcome commentaries, which may be shorter. We encourage potential authors to submit 150-word proposals for editorial review prior to their writing/submitting entire full-length manuscripts; include title, institutional affiliation, and a brief author bio with the text of your proposal.

Creative criticism: We solicit creative criticism under a broad ambit; we seek writers who are reflecting explicitly on their methods, practices, positionings, etc., as academic writers and/or creative practitioners. We provide space for autoethnographic explorations; lyrical, personal essays; creative non-fiction approaches; imagined dialogues; experimental oddities in which form charts “thinking in/as writing” (and vice versa); collaborative conversations and “inter-views”; interdisciplinary detournements.

About Inscriptions

Inscriptions is an interdisciplinary, double-blind peer-reviewed journal that welcomes a wide range of approaches to scholarship and writing. The journal is published online and in print. Inscriptions is indexed by, among others, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and archived by the National Library of Norway. Our authors include Wolfgang Schirmacher, Siobhan Doyle, Christopher Norris, and Jørgen Veisland.

Access to content in this journal remains open on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. To offset increasing expenses for publishing Inscriptions will from vol. 6, n. 1, introduce Article Processing Charges. Publishing with Inscriptions will cost €120/€80 (students and the unwaged), payable by the author after the article has been approved for publication by editors and external reviewers. More information about our policies are available from the Inscriptions web platform.

Deadline for proposals: 15 September 2022. Full manuscripts due 15 October 2022.

To support Inscriptions order single back copies of our print edition. For more information see the publisher’s order page.

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