18/07/2025
Call for Papers: Studia Phaenomenologica, Volume 27 (2027): “Phenomenological Approaches to Affectivity”
Guest Editors: Claudia Serban & Anthony Steinbock
Whether in the context of clarifying the theory of intentionality, uncovering the background of our facticity, describing the pre-linguistic layer of our being-in-the-world, or understanding the orientation of our intersubjective field as polarized by values, affectivity emerges as a central concern from the earliest stages of the various orientations within phenomenology and phenomenological philosophy. This crucial and inescapable status of affectivity immediately gives rise to far-reaching questions: Can we undertake a phenomenological description of modes of objectivity or of the ontological layers of the lifeworld and the social world without confronting the problem of affectivity—without accounting for the situated, embodied, and affective nature of all experience and every encounter with worldly objects and with others?
Likewise: Can intentionality be understood without attending to its affective character and orientation, or to the modalities of emotional life? In that case, the very structure of phenomenological correlation would demand to be rethought so as to include the affective and emotional dimensions of every intentional relation. How, then, are we to think the articulation between affectivity and the givenness of meaning? More broadly: Can the theory of intentionality be made to coincide with a phenomenology of affectivity—and if not, how do they intersect?
Moreover, given the fundamentally affective and variable tonality of our openness to the world and to alterity, and of our encounters with beings and with others, further questions arise: How can we unify, under the single concept of affectivity, the diversity of affects and emotions? What is the precise link between affectivity, its multiple manifestations, and their corresponding matters? How can we approach affects and emotions starting from their embodiment? Are we not compelled to rethink corporeality in light of its status as the seat of emotional life? What is the impact of affectivity and its fundamental variants on the dynamics of human life—from the overarching orientations of personal existence to the social and political movements that shape collective history on various scales?
This issue invites contributions that explore the role of affectivity in all these structural dimensions of classical or contemporary phenomenological reflection. We also welcome submissions that examine intersections between the phenomenology of affectivity and adjacent fields such as psychology, psychopathology, psychoanalysis, or the neurosciences, as well as history, anthropology, and sociology.
We particularly encourage contributions that offer fresh assessments of classical phenomenological approaches to affectivity (Husserl, Scheler, Kolnai, Heidegger, Bollnow, Levinas, Sartre, Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty, Patočka, Fink, Dufrenne, Henry, Maldiney, Richir, Waldenfels, etc.), alongside newer developments in the field of the phenomenology of affectivity and emotions. These may include: analyses of embodied affectivity and its impact on theories of consciousness or mind (Thompson, Steinbock, Depraz, Fuchs); the role of affectivity in the phenomenological concept of atmosphere (Schmitz, Bégout); contributions to the development of eco-phenomenology (Toadvine); renewed descriptive accounts of emotional life (Heinämaa, Zahavi, Steinbock), such as in the form of a cardio-phenomenology (Depraz); critical emotion theory attentive to the social, political, cultural, and economic constraints that shape affective life (Ahmed, Oksala); and approaches that treat affectivity as a fundamental dimension of openness to the world, thematized under the concept of desire (Barbaras).
We also welcome essays situated at the intersection of phenomenology, psychopathology, and psychoanalysis; contributions addressing the role of affectivity in shaping a theory of action; and studies investigating the relation between the phenomenology of affectivity and the fundamental movements, manifestations, and forms of social and political life.
Deadline: February 15, 2026.
Submission Guidelines: https://zetabooks.com/library/journals/studia-phaenomenologica/
Contact: Papers should be sent to [email protected] (subject line: Studia Phaenomenologica 2027)
Published in collaboration with the Romanian Society for Phenomenology. ISSN 1582-5647 (print) / ISSN 2069-0061 (online) Online Access via Philosophy Documentation Center This subscription-based journal offers a hybrid open access option. If you are interested in this option, please Email Us. For In...
