CfP Inscriptions 10, no. 1 (2027): Artifices

2026-02-20

While the concept of artificial intelligence is often treated as a modern “dot-com” phenomenon, the creation of intelligence via machinic technology is deeply rooted in cultural history, from Homeric “handmaidens wrought of gold” to Aristotelian technê as a craft grounded in knowledge. Today, however, the emergence of Large Language Models presents potential cataclysmic shifts in social, juridical, and economic spheres. This issue seeks to shed light on these complexities by treating AI not merely as a model of cognition, but as a machinic assemblage that reorganises desire and labour.

By deconstructing the distinction between the “natural” body and the “artificial” cyborg, we invite contributors to confront the structural brokenness of a humanity that is fundamentally mediated by technology. Drawing on the tension between the Other as a source of alienation and a source of creation, we ask how AI functions as a Big Other or an instantiation of the symbolic order. Beyond simple ethics or regulation, we aim to address the political task of philosophy in a post-humanist landscape.

Key questions include:

  • Can AI manifest a radical new ethical encounter or a manifestation of Alterity itself?
  • How does the symbolic distinction between the natural and the artificial create new circuits of desire and lack?
  • Can we trace a philosophical archaeology of the thinking machine to dismantle current binary logics of automation?
  • In what ways does AI reconfigure perception and the production of subjectivity beyond the thermodynamics of information?
  • Does the machinic Stranger serve as the site where the self is constituted or where it finds its ultimate alienation?
  • How can we compose new modes of life and care within the “cyborging” of humanity?

This themed issue will partly work as a vehicle to publish particularly incisive essays presented at the 6th interdisciplinary Ereignis conference on artifices in Gdynia, Poland, and online in August 2026 (https://www.ereignis.no/events/conference/2026). 

Invitation 

We invite papers from all traditions and schools of philosophy and adjoining discipline (critical and social theory, media studies and arts, literary theory and comparative literature, etc.) to address any of the topics and questions above. Submissions should be structured, well-argued, and show evidence of rigorous scholarship. 

Submission instructions: Academic essays should be 3,000 to 7,500 words. We encourage potential authors to submit proposals (150 words) ahead of writing/submitting full-length manuscripts. The editors provide an indicative review of proposals. Include title, institutional affiliation, and a brief author bio with the text of your proposal. More information is available under the Editorial Policies tab on our web-page. 

Creative criticism: For this issue 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. Creative criticism should be no more than 4,500 words in length. 

Deadline for proposals: 15 September 2026. Full manuscripts are due 15 October 2026.