CALL FOR PAPERS

CALL FOR PAPERS 2027

 

Issue 1/2027: Phenomenology of Literature

• Editors: Iwona Misiak (Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences), Monika Murawska (Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw), Daniel R. Sobota (Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences)

• Submissions: 2027, February 15

Details:

In the first issue of 2027, the Editorial Board invites reflection on the relations between phenomenology and literature. The analogy between the phenomenological attitude and aesthetic experience has been addressed, among others, in contemporary French phenomenology; however, phenomenological interest in literature dates back to the beginnings of the phenomenological movement. One need only recall the early Munich seminars of 1907–1908, conducted by Alexander Pfänder and Johannes Daubert and devoted to one of Henrik Johan Ibsen’s dramas, or Edmund Husserl’s famous letter to Hugo von Hofmannsthal of 1907, in which Husserl juxtaposed the work of the artist and that of the phenomenologist, observing that, despite certain differences, both share a similar relation to the world: for both, the world is a phenomenon whose meaning they intuitively apprehend and creatively transform.

In later decades, phenomenological research on literature became visible in the writings of Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Emmanuel Levinas, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Roman Ingarden, Paul Ricoeur, Henri Maldiney, Éliane Escoubas, Jean-Louis Chrétien, Renaud Barbaras, Jacques Derrida, Claude Romano, François-David Sebbah, and other philosophers. Among literary forms, poetry has usually occupied a privileged position in these descriptions and analyses. In the 1930s, within the Geneva School – including, among others, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Poulet, Jean-Pierre Richard, and Jean Rousset – phenomenological criticism and literary scholarship developed in the direction of immanent readings of texts. In Poland, the phenomenology of literature was dominated by Roman Ingarden; nevertheless, significant research in the field of phenomenological theory and aesthetics, or in approaches inspired by phenomenology, was also conducted by Zygmunt Łempicki, Leopold Blaustein, Stefania Skwarczyńska, Konstanty Troczyński, Maria Gołaszewska, and the lesser-known Ada Werner-Silberstein.

In the planned thematic issue, we are interested in the following questions and areas of inquiry: phenomenological literature as such – understood as literature focused on the direct description of phenomena and subjective experiences, as well as on the analysis of intentionality; phenomenological readings of literary texts; accounts of convergences and differences between earlier and contemporary phenomenological research and literary studies; and attempts to theorize the phenomenology of literature. We welcome contributions that discuss both modern and earlier literature in the context of phenomenology. We are particularly interested in articles analysing the mutual permeation and intermingling of phenomenological and literary texts, as well as in explorations of themes and concepts that circulate within both literature and phenomenology.

We invite reflection on the interrelations between literature, literary history and theory, and phenomenology in the following dimensions:

  • From the perspective of phenomenology, what is the general relation between philosophy and literature? Is philosophy literature?
  • From the perspective of literary studies, how should the relation between literature and philosophy be understood? Is an interdisciplinary philosophy of literature capable of effectively examining the philosophical content that appears in literature?
  • How do literary studies and phenomenology describe and evaluate the fluidity of the boundaries between artistic creation and theoretical discourse?
  • What similarities and differences emerge between literary texts and phenomenological texts?
  • How do literature and phenomenology explore questions of world, life, perception, corporeality, experience, language, and subjectivity?
  • Does phenomenology need literature? Do literary studies need phenomenology?
  • How does phenomenology respond to the old metaphor of the world as a book?
  • Is the ancient topos of liber mundi, derived from philosophy and theology, useful in literary studies?
  • In what ways does phenomenology use literature for its own research purposes? How do literary studies draw on phenomenological concepts and methods?
  • What is phenomenological description from the perspective of literary studies?
  • Which literary forms and genres are best suited to phenomenological description, and why?
  • Can poetry be regarded as a phenomenon akin to phenomenology, and why does poetry appear to be privileged within phenomenology?
  • What forms of critique has phenomenological description encountered from representatives of other currents of contemporary philosophy and from literary scholars? Is such criticism justified?
  • Must phenomenology, in any sense, be a form of “literature,” or does it offer possibilities for moving beyond the understanding of philosophy solely as written philosophy?
  • How do representatives of the global phenomenological movement understand literature as such and its particular works?
  • In the Polish phenomenological and literary-theoretical tradition, apart from the works
    of Roman Ingarden, are there other significant studies devoted to the phenomenology of literature?

 

 

Issue 2/2027: Radio in Transformation. Texts, Technologies, Listening Communities

• Editors: Natalia Kowalska-Elkader, Paulina Czarnek-Wnuk, Eliza Matusiak (University of Lodz)

• Submissions: 2027, May 15

Details:

The editorial board of the journal “Zagadnienia Rodzajów Literackich”/”The Problems of Literary Genres” invites submissions for an issue devoted to radio in the context of its history and contemporary transformations. On the centenary of this medium in Poland, we propose a reflection on its current form with reference to its history, the texts created within it, as well as on genre transformations, its relations with new technologies, and broadly understood audiality.

As a medium, radio has accompanied communities for decades, fulfilling informative, cultural, and community-building functions. In the face of contemporary transformations in the fields of technology, culture, and art, as well as listening practices, it is worth re-examining the role of radio as a space for socially engaged art and as a site of community formation. We are interested both in the historical perspective and in attempts to capture the future directions of its development within the changing media landscape.

We encourage authors to address, among others, the following areas:

  • contemporary models of community radio and forms of building communities around listening practices;
  • writing radio, not for radio — radio art: what place does radio art occupy in contemporary stations and how has its functioning changed in the digital era;
  • genre transformations of radio in the context of technological and media changes (radio vs. audio, radio vs. digital platforms, podcasts, audio series);
  • relations between radio and technology, including changes in radio texts, semiotic codes, and modes of production and distribution;
  • radio as a space of experience — from traditional broadcasting to on-demand models and interactive forms of reception;
  • audiality as a research category in the context of media studies, sound studies, media history, and cultural studies.

The proposed topics open a field for interdisciplinary analyses combining perspectives from media studies, literary studies, cultural studies, and sound studies. We encourage submissions of both theoretical and empirical articles, as well as case studies. Articles accepted for publication will be those that receive positive evaluations in the double-blind peer review process.

 

Main Section — texts unrelated to the topics of the Issues

• Continuous recruitment — texts processed according to the order of application.