CFP: Compositing Man: Worldly-ecologies & Life/Death Affirming Perspectives

Compositing Man: Worldly Ecologies and Life/Death-Affirming Perspectives

Call for Papers: philoSOPHIA 15, pub date est. for Jan/Feb 2025

Guest Editors: Xalli Zúñiga and Stephanie Rivera Berruz

philoSOPHIA: A Journal of transContinental Feminism

We invite contributions that critically challenge prevailing anthropocentric narratives of nature and that seek to interrogate the relations between life-affirming practices and the natural cycles of decay, decomposition, and regeneration. Drawing inspiration from Malcom Ferdinand (2022), we strive for a worldly-ecology “that recognizes that our existence and our bodies are made up of encounters with a plurality of human beings and a plurality of non-human beings” (20). We welcome projects that resonate with the idea that to be alive is to live and produce worlds through/with others. 

In resonance with current trends in feminist scholarship that explore the dynamics between regional and diasporic linkages across marginalized US communities and the Global South, including African, Indigenous, Caribbean, Latin American, Middle Eastern, and Asian perspectives on gender and sexuality, this invitation for contributions is guided by questions within transcontinental contexts and practical methodologies that have to do with:

1.     Redefining Belonging: How can we redefine belonging to extend beyond humancentric views, fostering a sense of nurturing dwelling with all forms of life?

2.     Nuancing Exploitation: How does the unequal exploitation of individuals through racial and sexual discrimination perpetuate a paradigm of plunder?

3.     Shifting Human Exceptionalism: How can concepts like porosity, mixture, and permeability challenge human exceptionalism, as well as reshape our frames of relation with the living world?

4.     Composting “Nature”: How does human egotism shape our perception of nature as an inert, subdued entity? 

5.     Revitalizing Life-Affirming Relations: How can coalition-building reconfigure life-affirming relationships, reshaping our understanding of humanity and life itself? 

6.     Reworlding Non-Capitalist Ecologies: How can we cultivate worlds beyond the reach of colonial-extractive capitalism, promoting global-scale mutualisms and cooperation?

7.     Spirituality: How do spiritual traditions from globally marginalized communities engage with and interpret the environmental crisis? 

8.     Sensuousness and Decay: How might we reshape our understanding of the connection between life-affirming practices and the natural processes of death, decay, and decomposition, and in what ways do these insights inform our understanding of sensuousness, the erotic, and relationality?

Deadline for submission: March 15, 2024

Email submissions to: [email protected]

Inquires to Guest Editors:  Xalli Zúñiga: [email protected] 

          Stephanie Rivera Berruz: [email protected]

Format: Submissions should be in the range of 5,000–8,000 words (including a 200-word abstract, author bio, and references) and should follow the formatting guidelines: https://sunypress.edu/content/download/467893/5617709/version/1/file/philoSOPHIA_SubmissionGuidelines.pdf