CFP: The Phenomenology of Desire (The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, Vol. XXVII)

Call for Abstracts

"The Phenomenology of Desire"

The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy (Vol. XXVII)

Guest Editors
Emanuela Carta ([email protected])
Sara Dameno ([email protected])
Alexis Delamare ([email protected])

About the volume
Over the past decade, phenomenology has emerged as a central interlocutor in the philosophy of emotions, and it is now well established that it offers distinctive resources for understanding the structure, intentionality, and normativity of emotional life. By contrast, its contribution to the analysis of desire remains comparatively underdeveloped, if not neglected. This is so even though reflections on desire can be found throughout the phenomenological tradition, broadly understood—from the Brentano School and early phenomenology, including figures such as Alexius Meinong, Christian von Ehrenfels, Edith Stein, Max Scheler, and Dietrich von Hildebrand, to later French developments, including thinkers such as Simone de Beauvoir, Paul Ricœur, Emmanuel Levinas, Frantz Fanon, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Renaud Barbaras. In addition, recently published materials from Edmund Husserl’s manuscripts—most notably the third volume of the Studien zur Struktur des Bewusstseins—offer important analyses that remain largely unexplored and invite further systematic development.

Against this background, the volume has a twofold aim. On the one hand, it seeks to clarify and critically examine phenomenological accounts of desire across the tradition, from the Brentano School and early phenomenology to contemporary approaches. On the other hand, it aims to assess how phenomenology can contribute to current debates on desire, including its nature, its relation to value and normativity, its role in agency, and its social and political dimensions. In this regard, we especially welcome contributions that examine how desire is shaped by structures of power, including race and coloniality, as well as those that explore how desire can be transformed and reoriented when freed from oppressive environments. In this way, the volume seeks to advance the philosophical understanding of desire while further developing phenomenological approaches to it.

We invite extended abstracts of approximately 800–1,000 words, outlining the central thesis, argumentative strategy, and contribution to the volume.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Phenomenological analyses of desire within specific schools or traditions (e.g., the Brentano School; the Munich and Göttingen Circles).
- Conceptions of desire in major phenomenological figures (e.g., Husserl, Levinas, Merleau-Ponty, de Beauvoir, etc.).
- Desire in critical and feminist phenomenology.
- The relationship between phenomenology and psychoanalysis with respect to desire.
- Contemporary phenomenological approaches to desire.
- Possible contributions of phenomenological perspectives to contemporary debates on desire.
- Desire in underrepresented or neglected phenomenological traditions.
- Non-Western phenomenological perspectives on desire.

Submission Guidelines
To submit your abstract, please fill in the form using the link below. Abstracts should be anonymized. They will be reviewed by the editors of the volume. Authors of selected abstracts will be invited to submit full papers, which will then undergo a double-blind peer review process in accordance with NYPPP policy. Final acceptance decisions regarding the full papers will be made thereafter.

Timeline

- Deadline for abstract submission: 30 June 2026
- Notification of acceptance: by 15 July 2026
- Full paper deadline: 31 March 2027

Length of final papers: 6,000–8,000 words (including notes and references). The volume is expected to be published in 2028.

To submit your abstract, please fill in and submit the form using the following link:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdUJyOZBt8Awm0b3KS5AIRvFNNmMK0QL8Mx5akW2SeHOa3XvA/viewform?usp=header

For any further questions, please contact:
[email protected]