CFP: Call for Papers | Problemos Special Issue: “The Trouble with Nature”

Call for Papers – Problemos (eISSN 2424-6158 | ISSN 1392-1126)

The Trouble with Nature: The Grounds and Symptoms of a Resurgent Question

In recent decades, we have seen a remarkable shift that has brought the concept of nature to the forefront across diverse fields of philosophy, political theory, environmental humanities, science, technology studies, and the arts. Various tensions in these fields have made appeals to nature both increasingly urgent and increasingly unstable. The critical questions surrounding nature extend well beyond the environmental crises we encounter – they delve into how we frame these crises to render them visible, intelligible, and politically actionable. The renewed prominence of nature, however, may itself need to be approached symptomatically: does the contemporary ubiquity of nature signal the return of something that modernity repressed, subordinated, or forgotten? Or is the apparent fluidity of the concept symptomatic of something belonging to the very nature of nature and its ontological horizon?

We encourage contributions that investigate the problematic concept of nature without being limited to specific ideological or political frameworks. We particularly welcome work that interrogates how nature is produced as a category, mobilized as a norm, invoked as a source of legitimacy, or transformed into an object of scientific, technological, ethical, and political intervention.

Topics may include but are not limited to:

- The relationship between natura and physis;

- Nature as technology and the nature of technology;

- First nature and second nature;

- Nature and ecofascism;

- Organicity, mechanism and cybernetics;

- Human nature, posthumanism, and transhumanism;

- The different modes of naturalisation: political, scientific, ontological, ethical;

- Nature and language;

Submission deadline: 2027 02 01

How to submit: https://www.zurnalai.vu.lt/problemos/en/about/submissions

About the journal: published since 1968, Problemos is an open-access Vilnius university philosophical journal publishing original scholarly articles and research papers devoted to all kinds of problems in philosophy. The journal also publishes translations of the original texts and book reviews. All submissions are subject to peer-review.

The journal is indexed in BASE, CEEOL (2005), Clarivate Analytics – Web of Science (Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI) and Current Contents – Arts and Humanities), The Philosopher’s Index (2000), CORE, Dimensions, Diamond Capacity Hub, DOAJ, EBSCO (Central & Eastern European Academic Source, Humanities International Complete, Humanities International Index) (2007), and others. 

For further questions, contact: [email protected];  [email protected]

Rita Šerpytytė, editor in chief, 

Brigita Gelžinytė, executive secretary