CFP: Etica-mente

Genealogies of the Natural, Forms of the Artificial, Ecologies of the Limit

What do we call “nature”? And what political, social, biological, and symbolic orders are historically legitimized in its name?

The theme for the 2026 issue of Etica-mente stems from a semantic and visual play: De/Natured. It features two poles separated (and united) by a slash ( / ) that graphically signals a fault line, a threshold, a fracture. On one side, there is being natured (part of an ecosystem, children of a biological and terrestrial origin, bound to a physis); on the other side, there is being denatured or un-natured, understood as a process of extraction, dematerialisation, hybridisation, and the radical artificialisation of existence.

Modernity has often been founded on a series of reassuring “naturalisations”: the idea of the nation as an original community, of the market as a spontaneous order, and of social and gender hierarchies as reflections of “natural” biological differences. Today, conversely, the contemporary age shows us a dizzying process of denaturalisation: the ecological crisis and the advent of the Anthropocene, the artificialization of life, algorithmic delegation, community uprooting, and the dissolution of the boundaries between human and non-human.

Can the dichotomy between nature and artifice (or the Freudian “discontents of civilisation”) still withstand the impact of the present? What ethics can guide us when what we consider “natural” turns out to be a political construct, and what appears “unnatural” becomes our everyday technological habitat?

The editorial board of Etica-mente invites scholars to contribute to the 2026 issue. Given the hybrid nature of our publishing ecosystem, we welcome both scientific essays (destined for the double-blind peer-reviewed ANVUR Journal) and more streamlined, essayistic, or narrative contributions (destined for the Magazine and Blog).

Contributions may develop (by way of example but not exclusively) along the following research axes:

1. Ontologies and Genealogies of Nature

• The conceptualisation of physis from ancient philosophy to Renaissance naturalism, up to the modern tension between naturalism and historicism.
• Deconstruction of the concept of the “state of nature”: genealogies of political naturalization and the crisis of modern ontologies (Marx’s alienation, Marcuse’s one-dimensional man, the construction of the enemy in Schmitt).
• Gender studies and biopolitics: the deconstruction of the naturalness of bodies; the institutional and disciplinary control over biological life (from Foucault to Agamben’s “bare life”).

2. Ecology, Habitat, and New Geographies of Belonging

• From Deep Ecology to philosophical posthumanism (Braidotti, Marchesini): overcoming anthropocentrism, interdependence, and new forms of multispecies coexistence.
• The de/natured habitat: the ethics of dwelling at the border between ontology, phenomenology, and urban ethics. The construction of the contemporary polis and the alienation of hyper-connected space.
• Political ecology: the inseparable link between climate justice and social justice; the illusion of “natural” borders in the face of migrations.

3. Bioethics, Transhumanism, and Synthetic Corporeality

• The redefinition of the human limit: eugenics, techno-scientific enhancement, transhumanism, and the defense of vulnerability. The imperative of responsibility (Jonas) in the Anthropocene.
• The contested body: the frontier between natural, prosthetic, and entirely synthetic corporeality. Who or what defines the integrity of the human body today?

4. Intelligence, Communication, and the Crisis of the Imaginary

• Anthropology of technology: the human between technological orthopaedics and the loss of the natural referent. Human-machine interaction and the use of the digital twin.
• Communicative denaturalization: the reduction of relationships to data exchange (Harari’s Dataism), filter bubbles, and algorithmic disembodiment. The fate of empathy in pedagogical and social spheres.
• De/naturing the imaginary: science fiction literature as a mirror and anticipation of technological realities. The loss of friction with reality in favor of a “velvet serendipity” generated by artificial intelligences.

Submission Guidelines and Deadlines
The deadlines for submission are:

• Abstract: September 15, 2026
• Full Paper: December 15, 2026

For information about the journal, please visit:
https://rivista.etica-mente.org
For submission procedures and editorial guidelines, please visit:
https://ojs.etica-mente.org

For any further inquiries:
[email protected]
[email protected]

Please note: Proposals not submitted via OJS or submitted via e-mail will not be considered.