Philosophy and Popular Culture
A special issue of Philosophies (ISSN 2409-9287).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 14 May 2026 | Viewed by 24
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
We are pleased to invite you to contribute to the Special Issue “Philosophy and Popular Culture” in Philosophies.
In recent decades, popular culture has become one of the most pervasive and influential dimensions of contemporary human experience. From cinema and television to digital media, fandoms, video games, and social networks, popular culture shapes not only collective identities but also philosophical understandings of reality, value, and meaning.
This Special Issue seeks to explore popular culture not merely as a site of entertainment or cultural production but as a philosophically significant field of inquiry. It invites critical reflection on the concepts, frameworks, and epistemological assumptions that underlie popular cultural forms and their reception. By doing so, it aims to reveal how popular culture participates in, challenges, or transforms philosophical discourse on knowledge, ethics, esthetics, and the self.
This Special Issue aims to advance philosophical reflection on the conceptual foundations and implications of popular culture, aligning closely with Philosophies’ commitment to fostering diverse and critical philosophical inquiry.
While studies of popular culture often draw on philosophy, this Special Issue specifically emphasizes contributions that advance philosophy itself; by engaging with questions of ontology, epistemology, ethics, and esthetics as they emerge in and through popular cultural phenomena.
The goal is not merely to apply philosophical theories to popular artifacts but to interrogate how these artifacts can, in turn, inform and reshape philosophical thinking.
If sufficient contributions are received, this Special Issue may also be published as a book, bringing together cutting-edge work that bridges philosophy, media studies, and the digital humanities.
In this Special Issue, original research articles and review papers are welcome. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
- Ontology and metaphysics of popular culture: reality, simulation, and the postdigital condition
- Ethics and virtue in mass-mediated worlds
- Esthetics of the popular: taste, kitsch, and the democratization of beauty
- Pop philosophy and the public sphere: philosophical communication in mass culture
- Popular culture and epistemic authority: truth, misinformation, and collective knowledge
- Technology, fandom, and the digital self
- The political philosophy of entertainment and spectacle
- Imaginary worlds, narratives, and meaning-making
- The role of philosophy in critical media literacy
- Theorizing cultural memory and identity through popular media
We look forward to receiving your contributions to this Special Issue and to advancing the philosophical study of popular culture as an essential dimension of contemporary thought.
Dr. Lars Konzack
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Philosophies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- philosophy of culture
- popular culture
- media philosophy
- esthetics
- ethics
- ontology
- digital humanities
- mass media
- imagination
- critical theory
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