Intimate relationships have undergone significant transformations globally, with relationship ideals and forms becoming increasingly diverse across commitment types, duration, and organization. This special issue aims to advance knowledge production by promoting observational rather than normative approaches to intimacies, encouraging data-driven scholarship that moves beyond polarized public debates about relationships.

The issue revitalizes Luhmann's systems theory approach to intimate relationships and love as communication media in modern societies. It invites scholars to apply systems-theoretical concepts to examine contemporary transformations of intimate life across different sociocultural contexts, bridging gaps between geographically or culturally isolated scholarly conversations.

Contributions may adopt two perspectives: analyzing intimate systems through systems theory concepts and examining how other social systems (law, politics, media, education) observe and shape intimacies. The special issue welcomes diverse empirical work grounded in theoretical frameworks, particularly from varied sociocultural environments.

Appel publié par Kybernetes. Voir l'appel sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• Social systems theory
• Sociology of intimacy
• Sexualities
• Gender
• Social semantics
• Applications of Luhmann's systems theory to intimate relationships
• Semantic and social evolution of intimate relationships
• Programs and semantic repertoires for intimacy across historical and cultural contexts
• Intimacy reproduction through self-reference and communicative improbability
• Platforms, markets, and mobilities reconfiguring intimate communication
• Expectations stabilization under volatility and dealing with disappointment
• Legal categories and their observation of intimate possibilities
• Media and platform logics observing relationship norms
• Moral and political discourses on specific intimacies
• Political mobilization of intimacy and family values
• Queer intimacies and inclusion/exclusion effects

Timeline

• April 15, 2026: Deadline for abstracts
• April 30, 2026: Authors will be notified of acceptance and invited to submit a full paper
• October 15, 2026: Deadline for submission of full papers

This special issue bridges systems theory and science fiction criticism to analyze speculative narratives as models of complex social systems. The editors argue that while science fiction commonly receives sociological interpretation, systematic application of Niklas Luhmann's theory and second-order cybernetics to the genre remains underexplored. The collection seeks to demonstrate how science fiction uniquely simulates social dynamics, including autopoiesis, operational closure, and functional differentiation, addressing contemporary concerns around artificial intelligence, fragmented discourse, and interconnected systems.

Appel publié par Kybernetes. Lire l'appel complet sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• Investigations into the 'hypertrophy' of social subsystems (e.g., totalitarization of politics, economization of life) and dedifferentiation in utopian and dystopian literature
• The emergence of non-human communicative systems, including Artificial Intelligence and alien consciousness, and their structural coupling with human society
• Science fiction as a specific function of the art system, allowing society to observe its own evolution, paradoxes, and latent possibilities
• Systems-theoretic readings of ecological crisis, the environment, and global interdependencies in speculative fiction
• Examining the fragmentation of public discourse, 'echo chambers,' and the breakdown of communication through the lens of SF narratives

Timeline

• January 4, 2026: Opening date for manuscripts submissions
• January 15, 2027: Closing date for manuscripts submission

Michal Kaczmarczyk, University of Gdańsk

Krešimir Žažar, University of Zagreb

Lars Clausen, University College London

This special issue examines Luhmann's concept of meaning as a central medium for both psychic and social systems, structured across three canonical dimensions: factual, temporal, and social. The call argues that while these three dimensions are foundational to systems theory, the underlying logic of why meaning should be organized into exactly these three dimensions remains unresolved. Recent scholarship suggests that meaning may be better understood as a potentially expandable framework responding to basic questions of observation, with additional dimensions such as spatial, modal, and motivational warranting exploration.

The special issue aims to revisit and extend meaning theory in response to contemporary societal complexities, particularly the technological mediation of meaning through artificial intelligence and algorithmic systems, as well as challenges like polarization and meaninglessness. It invites interdisciplinary contributions that employ reflexivity and second-order observation to explore how meaning is currently being observed, transformed, and contested across different media and inter-systemic relations.

Appel publié par Kybernetes. Voir l'appel sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• Theoretical work revisiting or extending established three-dimensional models of meaning (factual, temporal, social), including introduction of novel distinctions such as spatial, modal, or motivational dimensions and expanded sub-programmes within systems theory
• Studies focusing on second-order observation, reflexivity, and the inherent paradoxes of observation within social and psychic systems
• Analyses of how artificial intelligence, artificial communication, and algorithmic decision premises impact meaning-processing systems, technological co-evolution, and structures of expectation
• Explorations of forms of meaning that resist operational closure, reduction, or authoritarian simplification, including the role of imagination, counterfactuals, and non-necessary social orders
• Systems-theoretical approaches to current societal challenges, encompassing values, political polarisation, populism, inter-systemic relations, strategies for complexity reduction, and pathologies of meaninglessness
• Renewed theoretical and empirical engagement with sense-making, consciousness, psychology, and psychotherapy, with a focus on identity formation and the structural coupling between psychic and social systems

Timeline

• September 21, 2026: Opening date for manuscripts submissions
• December 13, 2026: Closing date for manuscripts submission