About


Focus and Scope

Anthropocenes – Human, Inhuman, Posthuman is a global interdisciplinary journal. Moving beyond concerns around global warming and the environment it focuses on diverse theoretical approaches to the Anthropocene from social sciences and humanities. The journal is about the invitation to rethink notions such as abstraction, art, architecture, design, governance, ecology, law, politics and discourses of science in the context of human, inhuman and posthuman frameworks.

Anthropocenes – Human, Inhuman, Posthuman's core contributor base and readership will be in the social sciences, arts and humanities although often social and political thought will be applied to aspects of the natural or ‘hard’ sciences. 

Categories of submission in addition to peer reviewed research articles (usually 6,000-8,000 words) are encouraged including: commentaries (overviews) or interventions (more polemic) on current issues or events or aspects of specialist topics (1,500-3,000 words); insights (pedagogically orientated pieces or practitioner focused); interviews (1,000-1,500 words) as well as book or other reviews (1,000-1,500). We also accept pieces on/as art practices and other creative pieces (short stories, visual essays, poems and so on), as well as submissions that might require some form of digital support.


Publication Frequency

The journal is published online as a continuous volume with regular special issues. Articles are made available as soon as they are ready to ensure that there are no unnecessary delays in getting content publicly available.

Special issues of articles are welcomed and will be published as part of the normal flow together or later on separate collection pages.


Open Access Policy

This is an open access journal. All content is freely available without charge to the user or their institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author.

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. One of the benefits of open access publishing lies in others being able to re-use material. We believe the greatest societal good is possible when people are free to redistribute scholarship and to create derivative works. This is why we use the CC BY 4.0 licence, under which others may re-use your work, on condition that they cite you.


Publication Fees

There are no author-facing charges to publish in this journal.  It is fully financially supported by the University of Westminster Press.


Indexing and Archiving

The journal’s publisher, University of Westminster Press, focuses on making content discoverable and accessible through indexing services. Content is also archived around the world to ensure long-term availability. In addition, all journals are available for harvesting via OAI-PMH.

Anthropocenes - Human, Inhuman, Posthuman is indexed by the following services:

  • EBSCO Knowledge Base
  • CrossRef
  • Google Scholar
  • SHERPA RoMEO
  • Chronos

To ensure permanency of all publications, this journal also utilises CLOCKSS, and LOCKSS archiving systems to create permanent archives for the purposes of preservation and restoration. If the journal is not indexed by your preferred service, please let us know by emailing p.grand@westminster.ac.uk or alternatively by making an indexing request directly with the service


Sponsors

The University of Westminster has developed into a university that combines both metropolitan and cosmopolitan dimensions, and which is closely involved in business, professional and academic life within London, as well as overseas. The University has always been, and continues to be, imaginative in recognising new needs and developing appropriate offerings for its many target markets and offering a vibrant learning environment – fostering innovation and creativity, informed by practice, inspired by research, focusing on the globally relevant areas in which we excel.


History

An Invitation 
Anthropocenes – Human, Inhuman, Posthuman seeks to explore the implications of the Anthropocene from the perspectives of the social and life sciences, arts and humanities. We see the Anthropocene as an invitation to think differently about ways of being in the world and how we operate within, across and beyond our disciplinary framings. We take inspiration from Val Plumwood’s view that the Anthropocene poses the question: ‘Is it to be a posture of openness, of welcoming, of invitation, toward earth others, or is it to be a stance of prejudged superiority, of deafness, of closure?’ At present we feel that there is too little invitation: work on the Anthropocene often seems divided between climate scientists working along technical and managerial lines and, what can come across as, fairly aloof and abstract philosophical approaches. We seek to work to expand the area of Anthropocene work which can often be obscured by this divide; working out from the middle as it were.

For us, the Anthropocene poses questions that go far beyond narrow technical or governmental concerns of how to address issues such as climate change and global warming. While some contributors may, no doubt, be concerned with preventing, slowing or opposing the Anthropocene as a future to come, we hope that others will provide a critical, constructive and exploratory focus upon what it means to live within the Anthropocene as a time in which the certainties of the modernist world are becoming undone. Our desire is that this journal will pursue the open-ended and future-oriented invitations of the Anthropocene through building new cross-disciplinary research communities, facilitated through publishing in an open access format available to all.

We feel that the time is right to establish a world-leading interdisciplinary journal placing the University of Westminster at the centre of contemporary conceptual debates and practices. Drawing upon our unique strengths across diverse fields from the arts and media to the human sciences, via law, architecture and politics, Anthropocenes will engage and work with leading and upcoming international academics and practitioners looking for an interdisciplinary outlet and keen to develop and initiate debate through traditional and non-traditional forms of publication including visual and audio links.