Call for Papers:

“Theatrum Machinarium” issue of the journal Technology and Language
https://soctech.spbstu.ru/en/news/theatrum_machinarium_dedlayn_5_oktyabrya_2026/
[From a post to the PHILOSOP list]

Deadline for submissions: October 5, 2026

The technologies of the theatre begin with the buildings themselves and how they organize the spectators’ orientation towards a performance. They go on with curtains and fly-systems, lighting and sound, with make-up and video projection, with fabrics and props. All of these disclose a space for action of a certain type, they organize perception and the creation of meaning. Theatre, in this sense, does not just operate with technologies but functions as a technology of its own. And so, role-playing is a theatrical technique as are reenactments – and then there is dramaturgy itself and the mechanisms it proposes for the proper incitement of passion. It offers prototypes of relentless machinery that takes the audience to heights and depths of feeling, yet it also proposes counterstrategies to subvert stereotyped plot-lines and cliched emotions.

All of this provides the background to fundamental questions about theatrical technologies. For a long time, the theatre was contrasted to the cinema and the staged drama to a movie. Nowadays, we need to also consider performance art as well as the many types of generative storytelling. We are therefore looking to discuss

• theatrical structures for controlling attention and emotion
• the stage as a site for excess and failure, of technology breaking down
• “deus ex machina“ and theatrical devices for revealing truth
• technical affordances of subjectivity and agency
• the varieties of spectatorship between absorption and theatricality
• theatrum machinarium – temporal and spatial organization of experience
• dramaturgy and norms for the composition of theatrical elements
• text and props as generative material

This range of topics highlights the theatre as a laboratory in which narrative devices are developed, critiqued, and refined. Experimentally it produces social constellations that refract the social world in highly idiosyncratic ways. Its controlled experiments are observed for their uncertain outcomes, allowing the audience to witness a spontaneous recreation night after night.

Transdisciplinary reflections are welcome, as is the appreciation of literary devices, or empirical participant-observation of theatrical experiments. Contact soctech@spbstu.ru or nordmann@phil.tu-darmstadt.de for contribution to this special issue which is guest-edited by Yerevand Margaryan and Lucien von Schomberg.

OTHER OPEN CALLS (SHORTENED):

“Technological Modernization: Western and Non-Western Accounts“ (if interested, please contact us as soon possible) — For a long time it went without saying: Modernization is firmly a Western affair, if only because of its origins in modern science, capitalism, industrialization, and the formation of liberal societies. In the contemporary multi-polar world and an age of technoscience, this view has been challenged. China and Russia, India and Brazil have been exploring non-Western models of modernization. How credible are these attempts? We invite narratives and counter-narratives of technological modernization from history and philosophy of technology, political theory, cultural studies, global TA and comparative governance, environmental and sustainability research, as well as the microsociological study of technological development. (Guest editors: Carl Mitcham, YAN Ping, and YE Luyang)

“Voices“ (deadline April 5, 2026) – Pen and paper, printing press, typewriter and word processor are but some of the technologies of and for written language. But language is voiced in poetry and prose, in conversation and song, at the lectern and on stage, in cries of pain and moans of pleasure. To find and have a voice is fundamental to human existence, requiring technologies of the self but also coaching or speech-therapy. To have one‘s voice heard is fundamental to human sociability, it is a matter not just of politics but also of megaphones and media platforms. And yet the technologies of voice reach even more deeply into our daily lives. 1) Voices themselves are tunable instruments that can be used strategically. 2) Voices are subject to technical change not only in the age of AI when the human voice might be displaced. 3) Human and machinic voices serve as an interface to technology as we are interrogated by and speak to devices. (Guest editors: Hardy Frehe, Anna Shcherbak, and María José Ríos)

“Machine Learning for Learning Machines“ (deadline: July 5, 2026) – In the age of AI, readers and writers, students and teachers are confronted with new questions: When any text can be generated or translated automatically, why learn languages at all? When machines can train humans, is this the future of pedagogy? – These questions refer to AI-powered systems like large language models; to human cognition itself, that is to our biologically endowed faculty to acquire knowledge and harness skills; as well as to AI-driven educational assistants designed to augment human learning. They evoke the age-old dream of computational devices that elucidate language, generate new ideas, and lay the foundation for universal communication. (Guest editors: Andrey Baykov and Nguyen Ngoc Vu).

Beyond these calls for special topics, submitted papers and interdisciplinary explorations at the interface of technology and language are always welcome. The next deadline for submitted papers in English or Russian is April 10, 2026.

“Technology and Language” is a quarterly journal: international, peer reviewed, Scopus listed, online, open access, academic (no fees). Queries, suggestions, and submissions can be addressed to soctech@spbstu.ru or to Daria Bylieva (bylieva_ds@spbstu.ru) and Alfred Nordmann (nordmann@phil.tu-darmstadt.de).

—
Alfred Nordmann

Professor em. Institut für Philosophie, TU Darmstadt, Germany
Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, University of South Carolina, USA
Guest Professor Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University
President Society for Philosophy and Technology (SPT) http://www.spt.org/
http://www.philosophie.tu-darmstadt.de/nordmann