The emergence and growing predominance of artificial intelligence have fundamentally reshaped how we understand knowledge, creativity, labour, and subjectivity. As AI models increasingly participate in writing, visual creation, research, and cultural production, long-standing assumptions within the Arts & Humanities (such as authorship, interpretation, agency, and even human experience) are being unsettled. Yet this disruption, rather than signaling the eclipse of the Humanities, intensifies their relevance. As algorithmic systems appropriate tasks once considered uniquely human, they reinvite considering some of foundational questions of the Humanities: What constitutes a human? Where does meaning reside? How do we understand creativity, narrative, and subjectivity when they are conditioned by automation?

Ironically, however, this state of urgency coincides with an ongoing devaluation of the Humanities, reinforcing the necessity of rigorous research. For instance, the common engagement with AI is marked by the quest for the “right prompt” and a desire for personalized creative output, amongst other things. It foregrounds capacities long cultivated within the Humanities: narration, imagination, descriptive precision, and articulation of subtle relations between feeling, form, and meaning. As we attempt to communicate with machines, we find ourselves returning to the relevance of human interpretive and imaginative skills while facing questions about the ambience of this new era: How does AI reshape moods, tempos, attention, and everyday affect? How do digital environments cultivate new forms of attachment, alienation, or ambient familiarity? What is the “vibe” of being a human in increasingly mediated and disrupted atmospheres?

*The Scattered Pelican* is the double-anonymized peer-reviewed graduate journal of the Comparative Literature program at Western University. As an interdisciplinary journal, it commits to a pursuit of scholarship that offers diverse and deep engagement with numerous media and objects of study, pluralistic methods and approaches, and playful challenging of forms and discourses. For the upcoming issue of the journal, we invite critical investigations and academic contributions reflecting on AI as both a technological disruptor and an epistemological force reshaping the Arts & Humanities. We welcome works that move beyond purely technical or ethical debates to engage the affective, atmospheric, discursive, and experiential dimensions of this transformation. We also propose “Vibe,” which we define as “an intuition evolved in feelings, sensations, and embodied perception,” as an analytic register for this moment. We find it a persistent marker of the difference between humans and technological systems. We invite papers that help us collectively take the pulse of this moment: a shared vibe check on disruption, humanity, and the futures of arts & humanities in an age shaped by artificial intelligence.

Possible topics include but are not limited to:
• AI and the transformation of humanities research
• The disruption of epistemology, pedagogy, and interpretation
• Redefinitions of creativity, authorship, and intellectual labour
• Narrative, description, and “prompt culture”
• Affective economies, “Vibe,” and digital atmosphere
• Human–machine relations: Facilitator, Friend, or Foe?
• Changing models of subjectivity and agency
• Platform infrastructures and cultural production
• Artistic and critical responses to AI-driven disruption
• Rethinking “being human” under conditions of post-COVID19 era

Eligibility and Deadline:
• We accept submissions from students, independent scholars, and university instructors at all career stages.
• All papers must be written in English and be 4000–7000 words in length. The word count must be inclusive of the Works Cited and Endnotes.
• All submissions must include a separate 50-word bio, a brief abstract, and 3-5 keywords.
• All submissions must be submitted directly through our Submission Form.
• The deadline for submissions is March 30, 2026.

Full submission guidelines can be found on our website: www.thescatteredpelican.ca
Questions and inquiries: contact@thescatteredpelican.ca

We look forward to reading your submissions.
The Editorial Team of *The Scattered Pelican*