Metabola is a new magazine critically engaging with contemporary culture, from the perspectives of psychoanalytic, philosophic, and political theory.

Founded in response to a general fatigue with the dominant discourses of both psychoanalysis and philosophy, the aim of Metabola is to form an extra-territorial counterweight to both the clinic and the university.

Metabola will focus on critical explorations of contemporary thought, with contributors from a variety of disciplines, including journalists, philosophers, critical theorists, and political writers.

The Meaning of ‘Metabola’

The concept of ‘metabola’ is derived from the work of French psychoanalyst, Jean Laplanche (1924-2012). In the original French, it appears as métabole, most prominently in Laplanche’s seminar of 1978, entitled La référence a l’inconscient.

The importance of this term rests entirely on its position within a more general scheme that Laplanche will later develop into a translational model of the subject. Subjectivity, for Laplanche, is a metabolism, a digestive process in which meaning is created from the accumulated noise of our lives.

Submissions

Metabola accepts proposals for work in any digital medium, however, priority will be given to the following:

• Original articles (between 700 - 1500 words);

• Long-form writing (4000-8000 words) ;

• Translations of previously untranslated work (any length);

• and finally, Poetry, which includes work that does not fall neatly into any of the above categories.

If you have a proposal, please send a summary of your work (<250-words), along with a short biographical statement (<150 words) - noting which category your work falls within - to submissions@metabola.org.

Submissions will be accepted on a rolling basis, and we will make an effort to respond to all submissions within 2-3 days.