CFP: CFP for a Special Issue of Angelaki: Khôra

Call for papers for a Special Issue of Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities

Khôra

(preliminary title)

Editors: Nicholas Birns and Marina Christodoulou

For a pdf of the full Call see: https://www.academia.edu/164922361/CFP_for_a_Special_Issue_of_Angelaki_Khôra

This special issue (33.5) invites contributions that revisit the concept of khôra, introduced in Plato’s Timaeus as a “third kind” beyond being and becoming, a matrix, a receptacle, and reinterpreted in contemporary philosophy, most notably by Derrida. Situated between presence and absence, intelligibility and materiality, khôra resists stable categorization while remaining indispensable for thinking space, inscription, and receptivity. We seek papers that engage khôra across disciplines, exploring its implications for spatial theory, media, politics, ecology, and aesthetics, as well as its limits and possible reconfigurations today.

Contributors are encouraged to explore the following subjects, as already apparent in the presentation/argumentaire of the edited volume, however these are not exclusive (an indicative non-exhaustive bibliography that might give some directions is included in the end): 

• Platonic interpretations, as well as pre-platonic and later antique  (i.e. Neoplatonist , e.g. Plotinus) references and interpretations

• Potential later uses and mentions of the term, e.g. in Byzantine, Roman, and Medieval texts

• Modern and Contemporary uses, mentions, studies, interpretations of the term: e.g. Spinoza, Leibniz, Schelling’s commentary on the Timaeus, Bergson, Heidegger, Phenomenology (Husserl, Richir, etc.), Whitehead, Derrida, Deleuze, Feminism (Grosz, Irigaray, Kristeva, etc.),  John Sallis, Aesthetics (e.g. in Arts, Performance and Architecture).

• Accounts from Charles Taylor,  John Caputo, Richard Kearney, other post-secular thinkers. 

• Non-western equivalent terms/concepts/ideas, or usages and interpretations, in Hindu or Buddhist philosophy or elsewhere, as for example in Nishida Kitarō, or in Indigenous cultures.

• Khôra and digital space / AI

• Khôra in architecture or urban studies

• Khôra and/in feminist philosophy, especially as applied to the limits and fault lines of gender. 

• Khôra and decolonial spatial theory

• Khôra in literature or visual art, especially accounts of place or materiality in literature. 

• Khôra and affect / embodiment

• Khôra and environmental thought, especially in terms of the idea of the ground. 

• Animal Studies

• Object oriented ontology

• Khôra and psychology/subjectivity 

Chapters shall be 5000-8500 (max) words, inclusive of bibliography and notes.

Contributions can include the following: original essays, interviews, and “review articles” (Angelaki does not accept standard book reviews though). Translations to English will be taken into account, as long as the responsibility for producing work of publishable quality in the English language lies with the author.

The Special Issue will also be published as a monograph-type book by Routledgein theAngelaki: New Work in the Theoretical Humanities - book series.

Please submit a title and an abstract/brief-outline proposals of between 300-800 words. Additionally, please include an up-to-date curriculum vitae (CV). The deadline for submissions is 01 August, 2026. Please send your materials to Nicholas Birns ([email protected]) and Marina Christodoulou ([email protected]), who can also address any inquiries you may have. 

The timeline is below:

01 August, 2026 – Abstracts/brief outlines due from CFP

September 15, 2026 – Notification of Preliminary Acceptance of Proposals or Rejection

September 15, 2027 – Completed Manuscripts Due, Editorial Reviews Start 

January 15, 2028 – Editorial Reviews Completed

March 01, 2028 – Revisions Completed, Final Manuscript Submission, Final Approval of Manuscripts

May 15, 2028 – Delivery of material to Angelaki. Beginning of Production Process (Copy Edits and Proofs)

September 2028 – Special Issue Publication Online

2029 – Republication in the Routledge Book Series

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For a pdf of the full Call see: https://www.academia.edu/164922361/CFP_for_a_Special_Issue_of_Angelaki_Khôra