Wednesday 14 February 2018

New Journal and CFP: Inscriptions, Vol. 1, No. 1


Consecrations: The Philosophy of Wolfgang Schirmacher and the Passing of the Human

Inscriptions, a journal of contemporary thinking on art, philosophy, and psycho-analysis, invites contributions to our inaugural issue on consecration, the philosophy of Wolfgang Schirmacher, and the notion of passing. We are looking for well-crafted and skilfully written scholarly essays and literary contributions that engage our mandate and the theme of this issue.
Passing: to pass for someone, to pass something by, to pass away; these are senses in which the term passing can be made meaningful in our lives, and in how we approach our lives in art. In psycho-analysis hold it possible to act in such a way that the subject leaves the domain of legal competency and enter into a state where we no longer can be held accountable for our acts, as well as protocols for the end of analysis, i.e., when the analysand passes into the analyst. In philosophy the term seems particularly apt as a description of the way we move from the world of humanism to that which lies beyond it. To Wolfgang Schirmacher the notion of Homo generator serves to address the uncertainties of our epoch of modern technology. It is a form that generates human reality in a climate of artificiality and ecocide. Homo generator is a media artist promising a Dasein without a need for Being, certainty or simple notions of progress. The lighting of truth (Heidegger) promised by Homo generator is supplemented by an art of forgetting: only in this manner can the media artist’s sanity remain in place.
Homo generator gives shape to just living under the aegis of an ethic that is forgotten or hidden: “Concealed from our consciousness, humans live ethically, a good life behind our backs. Only in feelings, in fascination, satisfaction, joy, but also in mourning do we get a hint of ethical worlds” (Schirmacher, “Cloning humans with media,” 2000). As with Heidegger’s claim that the light of consciousness needs to be shielded, Schirmacher’s ethical life-worlds are at their most present when they are hidden from view. This leads to a most unexpected thesis: that which we consecrate stands out as most worthy when it is hidden.

We seek academic papers and literary interventions that address questions such as:
  • How can the term consecration make sense to art, literature, and philosophy?
  • In what way can the work of Wolfgang Schirmacher, such as his figure of Homo generator, give reality to our epoch and our lived experiences?
  • How can the term “passing” yield meaning in our approaches to art, psycho-analysis, and philosophy?

Submission instructions
  • Deadline for proposals: 15 March 2018
  • Deadline for full manuscripts: 15 April 2018

Academic essays should be 3,000 to 4,500 words. We also seek scholarship in the form of interviews, reviews, short interventions, disputations and rebuffals, and in these cases we are open to shorter texts. Inscriptions adheres to the Chicago Manual of Style (footnotes and bibliography). For other instructions, please see our website. We encourage potential authors to submit proposals for review prior to their writing/submitting entire full-length manuscripts. Include title, proposal (150 words), short biography, and institutional affiliation in your preliminary submission.

All academic submissions will undergo double-blind peer review.

Literary submissions (short and long poems, aphorisms, short fiction, fables and literary essays of up to 1800 words) will be reviewed by our fiction editor.

Submit proposals and literary fictions through our online platform at:

Torgeir Fjeld, PhD
Editor-in-Chief, Inscriptions


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