PJES

Polish Journal of English Studies is a peer-reviewed journal for scholars working in the literature and culture in English, as well as theoretical and applied linguistics.

Issues

11.2 (2025)

Call for Papers: Critical Posthumanism and Relationality

Polish Journal of English Studies – https://pjes.edu.pl/ – seeks submissions to the new issue which will be guest edited by Professor Katarzyna Ostalska (University of Łódź).

Relationality constitutes the core foundation of critical posthumanism. Rosi Braidotti captures it as follows: “Posthuman subjectivity expresses an embodied and embedded and hence partial form of accountability, based on a strong sense of collectivity, relationality and hence community building” (2013: 49). Relationality views people as inseparably entangled (on equal footing) with more-than-human beings, organic and nonorganic entities. Such a conception undermines speciesism, the allegedly superior and unique place of human beings on Earth. Karen Barad rightly observes that “ ““Humans” are part of the world body space in its dynamic structuration….”We” are not outside observers of the world. Nor are we simply located at particular places in the world; rather, we are part of the world in its ongoing intra-activity” (2003: 828-829). In this vein, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing interprets relationality as empowering capacity to create bonds with organic and non-organic collaborators (2015: 124-125,220). Multispecies relationality can take many different forms, for instance, kinship: “Make Kin, Not Babies!” as Donna J. Haraway puts it (2016: 103).  Accordingly in the area of science, Haraway cites Carla Hustak and Natasha Myers, according to whom “ecological relationality … takes seriously organisms’ practices, their inventions, and experiments crafting interspecies lives and worlds” (2016: 67). Furthermore, for Braidotti, relationality (together with positivity and affirmation) is a condition sine qua non of posthuman ethics (2013: 191). With the above in mind, possible research topics may include, but are not limited to:

  • Relationality and Plant Studies
  • Relationality and Animal Studies
  • Interspecies relations
  • Sympoiesis and symbiosis
  • Relationality Beyond Euro- and Western-centric narratives
  • Relationality and Postcolonial and Indigenous studies
  • Relationality and Biocapitalism, Cognitive Capitalism, Late Capitalism
  • Relationality and More-than human entities
  • Relationality and Environmental humanities
  • Relationality and Blue Humanities
  • Relationality and Posthuman Ethics
  • Relationality and New Materialisms;
  • Relationality and Feminisms;
  • Relationality and LGBTQ+ communities;
  • Relationality and Disability studies;
  • Relationality in Literature, Art, Cinema
  • Relationality and Visual Cultures
  • Relationality and The Social Media
  • Relationality and Game Studies
  • Relationality and Philosophy
  • Relationality and Science
  • Relationality and Digital Technology
  • The critique of relationality

References

Barad, Karen. “Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2003, vol. 28, no. 3, 801-831.

Braidotti, Rosi. The Posthuman. Polity, 2013.

Haraway, Donna J. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke UP, 2016

Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins, Princeton UP, 2015.

 

Submission guidelines

 We invite articles relevant to the themes of the issue (not limited by the list above) and consistent with the journal’s style sheet which is available here: https://pjes.edu.pl/for-contributors/information/ .

Articles together with a short bio-bibliographical note should be submitted in English by the 1st of September. We intend to publish the issue by the end of 2025.