Critique & Humanism Journal, vol. 65 (2/2025):

“Digital Technologies and Artificial Intelligence”

(co-edited by: Valentin Slavov and Nikolay Genov)

Application deadline (working title): 10 June 2025

Submission deadline: 15 May 2026

Guidelines for contributors: link

Please, submit to: kxjournal@kxjournal.com; veronika.s.dimitrova@gmail.com

 

Call for contributions:

The place of the new digital technologies within the framework of the contemporary cultural environment and their relationship with the humanities and the social sciences has already become an integral part of the public discussions from the 1990s onwards. As an extremely dynamic field within the global culture of Late Modernity, digital technologies are constantly raising new questions for science and theory. The public launch of the ChatGPT at the end of 2022 – a large generative linguistic model, which concentrated huge consumer interest in a short time, caused a series of scandals, and caused once again the feeling of an irreversible world transformation – was followed by a series of events that concerned the rapid development of AI, among them, for example, the emergence of the Chinese model deepseek in early 2025.

The aim of the present issue of the journal “Critique & Humanism” is to open space for reflection on the problem of the position of digital technologies and AI in culture, arts, the social and political sphere. In this new situation, the social networks – which were until recently a major concern in terms of problematics in the humanities and the social sciences – turn out to be replaced by the scope of AI, its new unexamined abilities, and the aspects of its (un)controllability. Against the backdrop of this rapid development, the history of AI from the 19th century onwards also needs to be revisited. Does the contemporary situation make more traditional digital media obsolete, or, on the contrary, only renders the overall picture more complex by raising human dependence on technology to new unprecedented levels? On the other hand, can we identify an emancipatory potential in the current constellation of technological and cultural factors? In what ways should we revise the questions of innovation, creativity, authorship, and other key aspects of human culture that up to now appeared to be put to the test of technology, but today turn out to be practically unthinkable in traditional terms? As a distant horizon of all these problems, the philosophical question about the (presumed) human nature and its place in the world reemerges with new vehemence.

Suggested research fields:

  • New perspectives on digital technologies in the humanities and the social sciences;
  • Ontology, epistemology, semiotics, and critique of the digital; the problem of abduction;
  • AI and the human being; the insights of science fiction (e.g. “2001: A Space Odyssey” by Arthur C. Clarke, “Solaris” by Stanislaw Lem, etc.);
  • Social studies on digital technologies: Internet, social networks, AI, etc.;
  • Control and regulation of digital technologies and AI;
  • The impact of digital technologies and AI on society and culture;
  • Digital technologies and the political sphere (e.g. Deleuze and Guattari, Benjamin Bratton, Aaron Bastani, and others);
  • History of digital technologies (e.g. Charles S. Peirce, Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage, and others);
  • Digital technologies and the arts: the problems of creativity and authorship.

Critique & Humanism Journal, vol. 63 (2/2025):

“Pragmatism and Its Reception”

(co-edited by: Georgi Iliev, Milena Iakimova, Dimitar Vatsov)

This issue of Critique and Humanism is going to be dedicated to the philosophy of pragmatism and its influence upon the social sciences and the humanities in general. The maxim of pragmatism is defined by the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce. It states the following: „Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object“ (Peirce, “How to Make our Ideas Clear”). The maxim itself is to some extent similar to the famous Occam’s razor – a definition must not contain redundant elements, as the medieval logician William of Occam put it. This pragmatist principle gave rise to a whole movement amongst philosophers and social scholars likewise, which was based upon the presumption that the simpler is more efficient; that a social situation can be explored only “from bellow” and not by imposing preliminary principles on it; that every linguistic (or related to the action of signs in general) statement changes the rules of its language; that each community has its own vocabulary, which can be translated, but not completely analyzed; that consensus and solidarity can often be more important than epistemological justification. And hence this issue shall pay a lot of attention to the response to pragmatism in the different social theories.

Pragmatism has a long history in Bulgaria – it spreads from the first attempts to present the doctrine before the communist coup of September 9th, 1944 to the contemporary work on the semiotics of Peirce, on the language games of Wittgenstein, on Richard Rorty, on the relation between the critical theory of Jurgen Habermas and pragmatism, on the sociological research combining pragmatism and ethnomethodology, etc. It is a problem of our academic field that the epistemological and semiotic line develops separately from the sociological and social-critical line and the communication between the two is rare. But that is subject to change! We offer the following thematic circles, which are to be used as orientation for further work in the field of pragmatism.

Classical problems:

  • The epistemology and semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce.
  • The system of sciences and their development in Charles Sanders Peirce.
  • Experience, belief and habit in pragmatism: Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, John Dewey, George Herbert Mead.
  • Society, democracy and education: William James, John Dewey, George Herbert Mead.
  • The early history of pragmatism in Bulgaria – the figure of Ivan Sarailiev and others.

Receptions and neopragmatisms:

  • Is Ludwig Wittgenstein a pragmatist? Habit, rule and use in Philosophical Investigations.
  • Pragmatism and philosophy of science: Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, etc.
  • Neopragmatism in analitic philosophy (Quine, Davidson, Putnam, Rorty, etc.)
  • The attempt of Robert Brandom to combine Hegelian dialectics and pragmatism.
  • The pragmatist turn in critical theory after Habermas.
  • Chicago School, symbolic interactionism and
  • Ethnomethodology, sociology and pragmatism.
  • Pragmatist semiotics and the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari.
  • The pragmatist ethics and political philosophy of Josiah Royce.

 

Deadline for receiving the full manuscripts: May 15, 2025

Articles formatted according to the journal’s requirements  for authors can be sent to hssfoundation1@gmail.com and to the editor-in-chief veronika.s.dimitrova@gmail.com.

Critique & Humanism Journal, vol. 62 (1/2025):

“Propaganda, Disinformation, and Information Integrity of South-East Europe”

(co-edited by: Todor, Galev, Nikola Tulechki, and Veronika Dimitrova)

The Critique & Humanism journal offers a platform for the publication of contributions from the Sofia Information Integrity Forum (SIIF) 2024, as well as other articles on the theme of the issue. All submissions must comply with the journal’s academic requirements and pass peer review. This issue will be published only in English and therefore all the paper will be accepted only in English.

 

The focal points of the issue follow the focal points of SIIF 24:

The integrity of the information space nowadays is emerging as a fundamental value and stake in a world where domestic and foreign actors are challenging democratic values and the established order within our countries and internationally. We are faced with three questions that will determine the future of the democracy:

➣ To what extent will the various forms of anti-democratic foreign information manipulation and interference – by Russia, China, Iran, and other authoritarian states – succeed in forming a common front of the Global South against the West?

➣ To what extent will the disinformation and propaganda narratives that penetrate the information space of democratic states gain support from within, exacerbating internal divisions and undermining trust in democratic values and institutions in our countries?

➣ How can we build a high-integrity information space capable of countering the growing waves of anti-democratic propaganda and undue foreign influence?

 

IN DETAILS

The issue of the Critique & Humanism journal aims to answer these questions from a specific regional perspective – that of Southeast Europe and the Black Sea region. It will be published as a result of the Sofia Information Integrity Forum. From Ukraine to Turkey and from the former Yugoslavia to Bulgaria and Romania – the region includes some of the most vulnerable countries to foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) in Europe. The illegal annexation of Crimea, followed by Russia’s aggressive full-scale war against Ukraine, and the Kremlin’s hybrid warfare in the region, have dramatically increased the geopolitical and geoeconomic challenges facing the region. The region could also be seen as a laboratory for testing new propaganda and anti-democratic disinformation campaigns and other instruments of hybrid warfare. Disinformation-based active measures play a central role in Russia’s influence toolkit and are fully integrated into its foreign policy.

The Critique & Humanism journal invites scholars focusing on Southeast Europe and the Black Sea region to present their original research in the broad field outlined by the following questions:

⏣ What are the pernicious influences on the information space of the countries in the region? What is the role of external actors or foreign authoritarian governments in these harmful influences (primarily the Russian Federation, but also China, Hungary, Iran, and others)?

⏣ How do coordinated external disinformation and anti-democratic propaganda campaigns use local populist sentiments and spokespersons, and vice versa – how do local actors use propaganda narratives? What are the different stakes – internal and external, political and economic – that drive different local actors?

⏣ What are the narratives that are detrimental to information resilience and social cohesion? What are the commonalities but also the contextual differences between them in comparative terms? How do these narratives resonate – to what extent do they compete and to what extent do they cross-pollinate?

⏣ In particular, how are narratives about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine propagandistically packaged and disseminated in the region? And how are existing historical narratives and national myths being used for propaganda and disinformation?

⏣ What types of actors and networks – foreign, but mostly local (politicians, parties, public speakers, media, etc.) – are involved in anti-democratic propaganda and disinformation? What are the networks and alliances between these actors, but also the antagonisms between them? Is there evidence of transnational networks coordinating disinformation/misinformation campaigns, and, if so, what are they and how do they operate?

⏣ What are the technological means by which disinformation and propaganda are carried out in the region? And what is the role of social media? How can we counter propaganda and disinformation technologically?

⏣ What are the social vulnerabilities and grievances on which anti-democratic propaganda feeds?

 

Deadline for submission of manuscripts: 10 of January, 2025

Articles formatted according to the journal’s requirements for authors can be sent to kxjournal@kxjournal.com and to editor-in-chief veronika.s.dimitrova@gmail.com.

Critique & Humanism Journal, vol. 61 (2/2024):

“Memory, History, Genre”

(co-edited by Daniela Koleva and Bogdana Paskaleva)

In contemporary critical thought and within the framework of the humanities, the legacy of the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries bears upon the development of the Modern notion of history, where the historical is no longer simply the knowledge of the past, that has been preserved in antient chronicles. The past starts being perceived through the prism of the present and the future, and respectively, exerts its influence on them. Thus, history allows the present to relate to itself reflexively, as an integral part of larger temporal processes and unities. On the other hand, after the demise of grand narratives, history becomes fragmented and always interpreted from a specific present perspective, while the right to have a voice in the evaluation of the past becomes ever more democratic. Memory as the past experience of the individual or as the shared world of a community (collective memory) cuts into the historical dimension, intermingles with it, and thus plays a key part in shaping the perception of the present.

However, regardless of their content, memory and history are always molded by existing forms – narrative, verbal, visual, spatial, performative, etc., whose rules of construction are to the same extent historically brought about. The large units of these forms are usually designated with term genre. Understood not only as a narrow philological or literary notion, but in a broader sense, as an inherited framework of transfer of memory in a given cultural environment, genre could open up unpredictable perspectives to the studies of memory and history. The aim of the current issue of the journal “Critique and Humanism” is to ask the question of the relation between genre and historical knowledge, between genre and individual/collective memory.

In what manner does history take up historically emerged genre forms? Does the discursive framing of memory influence the ways in which memory is experienced? What is the meaning of genre forms – fictional, as well as non- or parafictional – with respect to the content they are intended to convey? Is there room in contemporary research on history and memory for such a basic understanding of the interrelation between historical content and genre form?

 

Suggested fields of study:

  • Memory and history – framing of the historical narrative.
  • Memory, genre, and experience.
  • Genre as historically emerged form.
  • Individuals and communities in genre forms.
  • Fictional and nonfictional genres.
  • Innovation and transformation of genre.
  • Theory and history of genre.
  • Functions of genre.
  • Genre as a point of intersection of past and present.
  • Oral and written genres.
  • Material, visual, and spatial aspects of genre and their relation to memory.
  • Verbal, visual, musical, etc. aspects of genre.
  • Genre and technical reproducibility.
  • Genre and memory in cinema and performative arts.

 

Deadline for submission of texts: 15 May 2024;

Layout guidelines: link

Send proposal and texts to: hssfoundation1@gmail.com, veronika.s.dimitrova@gmail.com.

Critique & Humanism Journal, vol. 60 (1/2024):

“Intimacy: practices, discourses and politics”

(co-edited by Gergana Nenova, Tatyana Kotzeva, Veronika Dimitrova)

In the context of the public debate about violence in intimate relationships, the forthcoming issue of Critique and Humanism Journal aims to study the meanings, representations and practices of intimacy. Increasingly moving away from the classical notion of romantic love, modern forms of intimacy are an uncertain terrain marked by expectations of reciprocity and trust, equality, sexual satisfaction and avoidance of ”toxic” behaviors. If, as Anthony Giddens claims, the transformations of intimacy in modern societies reflect changes in the patterns of gender relations, sexuality and family life, this poses the important question of the contours and directions of these transformations in Bulgarian society.

What are the discourses that influence notions of love, sexuality, intimacy, partnership? What is the role of digital technologies in the ”blurring” of definitions and practices of intimacy? Are ”relationships”in modern societies technologically mediated or technologically created? How are the immanent uncertainties of intimacy navigated, and with what risks are intimate relationships “charged”? How are gendered differences in notions and practices of intimacy changing? How do non-normative forms of intimacy such as same-sex relationships and non-monogamous relationships appear, assert and become publicly legitimate in a familistic society like the Bulgarian one?

These are just some of the questions that we will seek answers to in this thematic issue. Publications can be either purely theoretical or based on empirical research.

Possible subject fields in which we expect manuscripts are:

  • Theoretical approaches to intimacy
  • Public institutions and the regulation of intimacy
  • Digital technologies and intimacy
  • Sexuality and representations of sexuality
  • Violence and abuse in intimate relationships
  • Socio-cultural notions of love and intimacy
  • Generational dynamics in notions of intimacy
  • Gender and social roles in intimate relationships
  • Vulnerabilities and risks in intimate relationships
  • Ethnical and religious differences in intimacy

Deadline for submission of manuscripts: January 10, 2024

Articles formatted according to the magazine’s requirements for authors can be sent to hssfoundation1@gmail.com and to editor-in-chief veronika.s.dimitrova@gmail.com. 

Issue 59 of Critique & Humanism Journal:

“Space and Environment”

(co-edited by Simeon Kyurkchiev, Bogdana Paskaleva, Maria Martinova and Veronika Dimitrova; expected publication by December 2023)

The coming issue of Critique and Humanism Journal is addressing two concepts that are generally familiar, yet easily fading into the background ‒ space and environment. How to think of that which is around us? When, with the aid of what expert knowledge, through which notions and images do we manage to speak of it? What types of techniques are utilized to make it comprehensible and governable? When does space successfully turn into ‘alien’ or ‘ours’? How do we interact with all around us that we recognize as environment; how do we find its rules, regularities, and frontiers? What practices of representation or mapping, real or symbolic, can we describe? How does space relate to freedom and order?

In this future issue of the journal, we look for the various notions, approaches, ideas of the spaces and environments that we dwell in and that we are immersed in. We will welcome your contribution in the analysis of these concepts, their applications for understanding urban, cultural and surrounding environment, for interpreting specific spaces in which various groups interact. We are interested in the processes of defining, measuring, discovering and rediscovering, forming, dwelling and protecting space and environment, in the experts and policies that approach them. We want to investigate how environment becomes stabilized or destabilized. What are the philosophical, sociological, anthropological and artistic interpretations of the notions of space and environment; and the technological mediations of space and their inevitable effects on our daily lives?

Topics:

  • Urban environment, urban policy and urban planning
  • Geographic space and practices of representation
  • Fictional and real space
  • Environment and ecology
  • Utopia and heterotopia
  • Environment and governmentality
  • Ontology of space
  • Technologies of space
  • Historical metamorphoses of space
  • Images and notions of spaces
  • Modernity and spatial revolutions
  • Real and virtual spaces

Deadline for submission of manuscripts: May 15, 2023

Articles formatted according to the magazine’s requirements for authors can be sent to hssfoundation1@gmail.com and to editor-in-chief veronika.s.dimitrova@gmail.com.