Issue #3:

Sensing the Anthropocene: Post-digital Entanglements in Culture, Aesthetics, and Arts Education 

CALL FOR PAPERS

Proposal deadline: April 30, 2024

“Anthropocene” is a term that signifies the realization that we, as humans, have become a primary source of natural and planetary disruptive change, due to enforced and ongoing exploitative and extractive ideologies (Yusoff, 2018). The acknowledgment of the profound and pervasive impact of such attitudes and practices is a powerful, albeit late, reminder of our deep entanglements as terrestrial beings. In the consumerist and industrialized societies that developed since the 19th century, this entanglement has increasingly been forgotten, overwritten, or even forcefully subdued by colonial violence. Education, along with the modes of perception cultivated particularly in modern western education systems, may have played a crucial role in this process (Spivak, 1999). An education that critically reflects on its role in the creation of such habitus, attitudes, and mindsets that not only prolong but also enhance anthropogenic dynamics will have to implement change at the core of its endeavors (Priyadharshini, 2021; Wulf, 2022).

Research on and practices of cultural, aesthetic, and arts education has already begun to explore the relationship of sustainability and culture & arts education (Wagner et al., 2021; Bolden & Jenneret, 2021; Illeris 2022; Jörissen, Unterberg & Klepack 2023). The issue will focus on the idea that the opportunities of culture & arts education to foster not only planetary thinking, but planetary sensing (i.e. to foster sustainability by promoting a new planetary common sense/sensing) should decisively make use of the current state of global and glocal (post-)digital cultures (Cramer, 2014; Gabrys, 2018 & 2019). Far from being a mere control technology, digitality – i.e. digital thinking, sensing, and interconnecting – proves to be open to an abundance of critical and counter-hegemonial uses, which have in particular been explored by aesthetics (Berry & Dieter, 2015), arts (Latour & Weibel, 2020; Hüpkes & Dürbeck, 2021; Tavin et al., 2021), and arts education (Eschment, Neumann, Rodonò et al., 2020).

When “the becoming planetary of media might unfold not so much as a tale of elemental media, but rather more as collective narratives that generate lives storylines toward more just worlds for diverse humans, more-than-humans, and their planetary inhabitations” – as Jennifer Gabrys (2018) states –, the entanglements of human and non-human agents in a post-digital society allow for a multisensory engagement with the Anthropocene’s complexities. Artists and educators alike begin to employ various mediums, such as visual arts, performance, literature, or even immersive technologies, to evoke a sensory-aesthetic artistic experiencing which resonates with the ecological challenges of this era. Through artistic and aesthetic processes of a transformative learning and sensing, culture & arts education may develop new ways and means to confront the ethical, social, and cultural implications of the Anthropocene – a process that encourages a nuanced exploration of the complexities inherent in human-nature-technology relationships, fostering a sense of responsibility and ecological awareness.

This call invites explorations at the nexus of environmental sensories, sensibilities, and sensorial histories with regard to the role of aesthetics and arts in education, particularly in reflection of the current, i.e. post-digital modes and conditions of perceiving, sense-making, and ‘worlding’ (Haraway, 2016) that enhances our understanding of environmental challenges, resilient practices and robustness while also nurturing a sense of agency and responsibility in shaping sustainable futures.

We seek contributions that delve into how these intersecting realms shape our understanding and engagement with planetary and terrestrial encounters. Contributions can be theoretical, empirical (including artistic research approaches) or methodological explorations of practice and research in cultural, aesthetic, and arts education, addressing planetary issues preferably in postdigital contextualization.

This includes, but is not restricted to, the following topics:

• Analyses and observations on cultural transformations, perceptual shifts, and new (artistic-) aesthetic strategies in the context of a post-digital planetary perspective;

• Integrating inter- and transdisciplinary approaches by which educators can empower students to explore the Anthropocene through creative expression and critical thinking;

• Ways of professional sensitization (What does this mean for the training of arts educators and teachers?);

• Questions addressing ways and means of implementation at the level of policy and curricular guidelines, organizational programming;

• Contributions that address and discuss the tension between “arts for art’s sake” and “arts for social sake”;

• Critical contextualizations regarding the handling of post-digital planetary perspectives in cultural, aesthetic, and arts education from post- and decolonial perspectives;

• Good practice examples and lessons learned (i.e. academically framed praxis reports).

Complete call for papers here.

IJRCAAE website: eno-net.phil.fau.eu/international-journal-for-research-in-cultural-aesthetic-and-arts-education

The peer-reviewed International Journal for Research in Cultural, Aesthetic, and Arts Education (IJRCAAE) aims to stimulate and disseminate research in arts and cultural education. Inspired by the UNESCO Goals for the Development of Arts Education (Seoul Agenda) the journal serves as a platform for a global polylogue of researchers in cultural, aesthetic, and arts education, interconnecting its wide-spread research fields by focusing on various aspects of cultural and social transformation and the contributions of cultural, aesthetic, and arts education toward global challenges, such as sustainability and resilience, heritage and transformation, digitalization and global citizenship, diversity and inclusion. All articles in IJRCAAE are published in open access, making them freely available to read and download. APCs will be covered by the UNESCO Chair in Digital Culture and Arts in Education. Authors do not have to pay for submitting proposals or publishing
accepted articles.