“For Europe, for ourselves and for humanity, comrades, we must turn over a new leaf, we must work out new concepts, and try to set afoot a new man.” - Frantz Fanon

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We inhabit a world in which the question of the human has become newly unsettled. Ecological devastation, resurgent nationalisms, racial violence, technological transformation and the enduring afterlives of empire have combined to expose the fragility of the categories through which modernity has understood itself. At stake is not simply the future of political life, but the very terms on which humanity has been imagined, distributed and denied.

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Since the publication of The Wretched of the Earth, calls to provincialise Europe, to think beyond colonial reason and to cultivate new vocabularies of freedom have shaped a rich intellectual and political inheritance. Yet the figure of the human remains unresolved. Who has been recognised as fully human, and at what cost? What forms of life have been rendered disposable, subordinate or outside the frame of moral concern? And what alternative visions of humanity might emerge from contemporary grassroots movements and collectives as well as from currents of struggle, repair, relation and planetary responsibility?

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Some seek to move beyond the human altogether, embracing posthuman and more-than-human horizons that unsettle inherited distinctions between human, machine, animal and environment. Others return to the question of humanism, not in nostalgic defence of its compromised universalism, but in search of a radical and reparative conception of the human, one capable of reckoning with the histories of race, empire and exclusion that have shadowed its making.

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For this issue of The Philosopher, we invite contributions from theorists, philosophers, students of philosophy, researchers, artists, activists, and organisers who engage critically and imaginatively with these questions such rethinking might open. In the spirit of Fanon's Wretched, we particularly value reflections on the human in light of struggles for rehumanisation in different geographies. We welcome essays, dialogues, interviews and experimental forms that explore how the human may be rethought in the present conjuncture, and what political, ethical and aesthetic possibilities such rethinking might open.

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We particularly welcome proposals that engage with themes including:

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• Decoloniality and the refoundation of humanism

• Posthumanism and critiques of human exceptionalism

• Ecology, planetary life and communities of the living

• Race, gender and the historical making of “the human”

• Technology, artificial intelligence and the reconfiguration of subjectivity

• Spiritualities, cosmologies and non-Western humanisms

• Art, literature and imaginative visions of the human otherwise

 

This issue builds on the first edition of the mini-series Philosophies of the South, extending its conversations into a broader reflection on humanity, freedom, conviviality and life in common.

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Key dates

28 May 2026: Expression of interest
1 June 2026: Selected contributors notified and commissions confirmed
1 August 2026: First draft submission
1 October 2026: Final submission
December 2026 / January 2027: Publication of the issue

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Expression of interest

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Complete this form by 28 May 2026. 

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We invite you to submit a brief abstract and a fuller outline of your proposed contribution (500 to 700 words). Where relevant, you are welcome to include a short list of texts, thinkers or works that inform your approach. 

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Submission Guidelines

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Essays: 3000 word limit addressing the key themes

 

Creative Interventions: 1500 word limit, which can be in a poetic or literary style

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Interviews: 2000 word limit with leading authorities from academic, policy, activist or cultural spheres.

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For more details, please read the Submission Guidelines. 

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About the co-editors

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rémy-paulin twahirwa (he/they) is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Aston University, community organiser and writer based in London. Their writing has appeared in both academic and non-academic venues, including LSE Review of Books, Society + Space and Liberté. They are currently completing their first manuscript, On Ghostly Lives, and serve as Managing Editor of The Philosopher and co-convenor of the BSA Race and Ethnicity Study Group. 

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Nelson Maldonado-Torres is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut, Co-Chair of the Frantz Fanon Foundation, and President Emeritus of the Caribbean Philosophical Association (2008-2013). He is also Professor Extraordinarious at the Institute for Social and Health Sciences, University of South Africa, and Senior Associate of the BlackHouse Kollective-Soweto. His publications include dozens of articles and book chapters on his main research areas, which include: decolonial philosophy, philosophy of race, philosophy of religion, phenomenology , and philosophy of the human sciences. With Zandi Radebe, he is the author of "Combative Decoloniality and the BlackHouse Paradigm of Knowledge, Creation, and Action" in the open access edited book, Knowing-Unknowing: African Studies at the Crossroads (2024).

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Questions/comments

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Please email r.twahirwa@aston.ac.uk and/or thephilosopher.print@gmail.com.

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