12/09/2022
Archi-DOCT
upcoming issue 20 call for papers October 2023............................................................................
A E S T H E T I C S and P O L I T I C S ............................................................................
Guest editors
1. Thomas Symeonidis | Athens School of Fine Arts
2. Dimitris Gourdoukis | School of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki............................................................................
The 20th issue of the ArchiDOCT e-journal welcomes papers that explore the theme of ‘aesthetics and politics’ in architecture and its connections with the built, material and conceptual environment as presuppositions of the architectural design process or as its implementation. The contemporary landscape of thought in aesthetics and politics has been enriched by significant contributions, notably the works of French philosopher Jacques Rancière. According to his work, politics has its aesthetics, its specific way of redistributing the sensible, of providing a new restructuring of the field of experience and ultimately of creating a new topography of possibilities. At the same time, we have seen the emergence of discourses with an ethical and stressed metaphysical tone such as the emphasis on the aesthetic category of the sublime and the questioning of the capacities for representation either in connection to imagination or in the irrepresentable of historical events.
Architecture is about forces, as are politics, which are not limited to ideology, committed art or even activism. In a meta-political sense, architecture has its own political function, its own way to create political content. By effectuating a re-modeling of social time and space, by establishing new relations or elaborating and interrogating the existing ones, architecture and design are already political – and they have always been.
Architecture is about forces, as is negativity: Theodor Adorno in his well-known aphoristic manner declared that “the beauty today can have no other measure except the depth to which a work resolves contradictions”. Massimo Cacciari emphasizes the importance of registering the leaps, the ruptures in history and how important is this form of negative thought for the production of innovation. Walter Benjamin as well worked on a historical project based on a dialectical aesthetic and political logic. From this standpoint it would be of importance to reflect today on the ways architecture (re)present reality along with the questioning of existing representational patters.
Architecture is about forces, as is affirmation: Felix Guattari in his late work also conjures the notion of aesthetics – albeit from a different perspective – by pointing towards a new aesthetic paradigm with clear ethico-political implications that will replace the scientific paradigm. Creation in that context becomes an affirmative action where the engagement with the new is still something disruptive though not as an alternative to tradition. Innovation in that case is not the negation of the existing but instead is always the result of a fundamentally affirmative process. Not the negation of the known, but the affirmation of the unknown.
By re-stating the relation between aesthetics and politics in a more creative manner we expect to incite an interest on the ways fiction, narrative and story-telling can be considered as structures open to re-designs, with their own architectural, spatial, material and sensual qualities.
Against this backdrop, we invite papers that will embark on, or present an exploration of the various manifestations of the aesthetical and/or the political dimension within architectural theory and/or praxis, as well as design practices and tools associated with them. Although we encourage insights and experimentations with contemporary conceptions of the aesthetic and the political, we welcome propositions that address the becoming of traditional aesthetic concepts that have had already seen a substantial transformation in the context of the first generations of critical theory, notably the Frankfurt School. Having said that, we are also interested in papers that will reflect on the domains of architecture and design from the point of view of inter-disciplinary tool-making and more creative understandings of policy-making to the extent of experimentations with the artistic domains.
Within these premises, the 20th issue of ArchiDOCT invites academics, early career researchers, and PhD students (writing as single authors, with their supervisor(s) or with fellow doctoral students or doctoral holders), to submit articles that deepen our understanding of aesthetics and politics in relation to architecture and design. Our objective is to provide clear depictions, trace valid paths and possible extensions of the aesthetic and political dimension at any level and manifestation of architecture and design.
Relevant subthemes include:
* Aesthetics and politics in relation to the creation process.
* Elaboration of design principles from existing aesthetic and political theories.
* Convergences and similarities between artworks and architecture.
* Appreciation of architectural design or constructions in terms of aesthetics and politics
* Architectural and design processes in relation to the spectator, the citizen, the inhabitant.
* Introduction of narratives in the architectural process as an aesthetic vector.
Important dates
Expression of interest (through a 500-word abstract and contact
with the guest editor): October 1st 2022
First paper submission: March 15th 2023
Review period: March 20th - May 15th 2023
Final submission: July 15th 2023
Publication date: October15th 2023
Submission policy
ArchiDOCT is published two times a year, in April and October. The official language of the journal is English. Submitted manuscripts for review should not exceed 4500 words, including abstracts, references and image captions. The referring system will be the APA Style (7th edition). Text should be saved in a Microsoft Word or RTF file, while the supporting visual material (images, diagrams, sketches, tables and so on) should be sent as TIFF files with a resolution of at least 300 dpi. All visual material should be clearly indicated and numbered in the text, along with the respective image captions and credits.
All further info can be found at the following page: https://archidoct.scholasticahq.com/for-authors.
Final submissions will be delivered through the online submission system that will be activated on the journal’s page: https://archidoct.scholasticahq.com/
ArchiDOCT accepts manuscripts from PhD holders, students, postdoc students, either as co-authors or in collaboration with fellow researchers and/or with their supervisors.
Reviewing policy
The peer reviewers are all confirmed educators of architecture coming from different educational backgrounds, with different specialisations and expertise that share the common interest of their doctoral students: to encourage them to publish their work while improving their thinking processes towards academic research writings. Each submitted article is reviewed by two members of the journal’s Scientific Committee anonymously.
Copyright policy
The ArchiDOCT journal is offered in a downloadable form for academic and research purposes only. All material published in each issue is, unless otherwise stated, the property of the authors of the respective articles. The reproduction of an article in whole is only allowed with the written consent of the author. Any reproduction of the material in parts, in any manner, should properly credit the copyright holder. A single copy of the materials available in each issue may be made for personal, noncommercial use.
For general enquiries please contact the Editorial Board at [email protected]
For enquires specifically addressed to the upcoming 20th ISSUE please contact:
[email protected]
