(CLOSED) Call for Papers: Posthuman Arts Education

2023-06-14

Guest Editors: Henrika Ylirisku (University of Helsinki), Tomi Slotte Dufva (Aalto University) & Mikko Snellman (University of Turku)

This thematic issue of Research in Arts and Education explores the intersections of posthuman theories and arts education. Over the past decade post-humanist and post-anthropocentric approaches have gained ground in art education research and paved the way for rethinking (arts) education, artistic practices, everyday life, ethics, as well as the human relationality with the world – Garoian (2012), jagodzinski (2013), Hickey-Moody & Page (2015), and Trafí-Prats (2017) being among the first ones. In the age of the environmental crises, the communal and societal meanings and roles of all fields of arts and their education are changing, and thus require constant re-orientation.

According to Snaza & Weaver (2014) posthumanism is a working title connecting different movements and approaches coming genealogically from a wide range of sources and disciplines, such as critical posthumanism, new materialisms, agential realism, material feminism, affect theory, philosophy of immanence, socio-material perspectives, actor-network theory, and non-representational theory. Jusslin and colleagues (2021) gather these theories through the concept of post-approaches. These theories have also promoted developing ways of making post-qualitive research. The above-mentioned posthumanist frames (and others not mentioned here) share understanding of knowledge and being in the world as constantly becoming and intrinsically entangled, and they seek to unpack the categorical divides of the Western modern thinking, such as human/nonhuman, nature/culture, subject/object, mind/body, and theory/practice. Further, these views intersect with the critique of the privileging of Eurocentric theoretical traditions of critical thought.

In this call we are looking for articles, visual essays, and commentaries that discuss how art educators and other scholars interested in the topic embody, and work with above-mentioned theoretical frames in various (art) pedagogical contexts. Contributions may address, but are not limited to, the following questions:

  • What happens when posthuman theories are put to work in arts education, art pedagogies, and their research? What kind of practices, questions, speculations, imaginaries, provocations, affects, potentials, and tensions are set in motion? 
  • How are learning, teaching, and artistic practices reoriented through/with posthuman theories? What kind of subjectivities, knowledge production practices, ethics, matterings and more-than-human collaborations are evoked? 
  • What kind of agencies, response-abilities and activisms can posthumanism-inspired art promote?
  • How do arts education practices and research drawing from posthuman theories acknowledge indigenous cosmologies and epistemologies, and how do they intersect with approaches drawing from other critical studies, such as post-colonial and anti-racist movements?
  • What kind of research and/or pedagogical practices are activated, when (posthuman) arts education relates to (studies and) disciplines such as multispecies studies, critical animal studies, childhood and youth studies, anthropology, environmental humanities, and more? 

We welcome manuscripts either in English or Finnish.

Submission

Please submit a max. 150-word (not including references) abstract by September 1st, 2023 through Research in Arts and Education’s online platform: https://journal.fi/rae/about/submissions. Please note that you must register to the platform to submit your abstract. Make sure you use the submission section “Abstracts” when submitting the file. In “Comments to the editor,” write “CFP Posthuman Arts Education” and the manuscript format listed below (Visual essay; Research-based article; Commentary paper).

The submitted manuscripts should not have been previously published nor should they be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere.

The authors will be notified on the status of their abstract by September 8th, 2023, and are expected to send their full manuscripts by December 1st, 2023.

There are three recommended manuscript formats for Research in Arts and Education:

  • Visual essay that studies the topic through artistic means. Artistic content must be accompanied with a written component in which the author describes, analyses, and/or reflects their artistic practice. Recommended length for this format is 3,000 words including references.
  • Research-based article that studies the topic through academic means. Recommended length for this format is 6,000 words including references.
  • Commentary paper that partakes in a topical discussion on art and/or research. Recommended length for this format is 3,000 words including references.

Each format can include visual material as well as multimedia content (e.g., performative content, video, internet, or sound work, etc.). Since Research in Arts and Education is published in PDF format, multimedia content must be included as external links. Authors are responsible for hosting all external content as well as ensuring its accessibility, as Research in Arts and Education does not currently provide online hosting services.

Research in Arts and Education grants open access to all publications and is ranked in the Publication Forum of The Federation of Finnish Learned Societies.

Please email Eva Tordera Nuño (eva.torderanuno@aalto.fi) if you have any questions about submission procedures. The thematic issue is guest edited by Henrika Ylirisku (henrika.ylirisku@helsinki.fi), Tomi Slotte Dufva (tomi.slottedufva@aalto.fi) and Mikko Snellman (mikko.snellman@utu.fi).

References

Garoian, C. R. (2012). Sustaining sustainability: The pedagogical drift of art research and practice. Studies in Art Education, 53(4), 283–301. https://doi.org/10.1080/00393541.2012.11518870

Hickey-Moody, A., & Page, T. (Eds.). (2015). Arts, pedagogy and cultural resistance: New materialisms. Rowman & Littlefield.

jagodzinski, j. (2013). Art and its education in the Anthropocene: The need for an avant-garde without authority. Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, 10(1), 31–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/15505170.2013.790000  

Jusslin, S., Bodén, L., Magnusson, L. O., & Østern, T. P. (2022). Post-approaches to education and the arts: Putting theories to work in arts educational practices. Journal for Research in Arts and Sports Education, 6(3), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.23865/jased.v6.4017 

Snaza, N., & Weaver, J. A. (2014). Introduction – education and the posthumanist turn. In N. Snaza & J. Weaver (Eds.), Posthumanism and Educational Research (pp. 1–14). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315769165   

Trafí-Prats, L. (2017). Learning with children, trees, and art: For a compositionist visual art-based research. Studies in Art Education, 58(4), 325–334. https://doi.org/10.1080/00393541.2017.1368292