Call for papers
Submission deadlines
February or September
Publication
One of the two 2026 issues
Submission guidelines
All contributions must be interdisciplinary and written in a way that makes them accessible to a heterogeneous readership of experts and non-experts alike. Submissions must be original and unpublished.
Authors are invited to consult Nodes editorial guidelines available at: https://nodesjournal.com/en/contacts/
All accepted papers will be published in both Italian and English. Nodes editorial board will handle translation into one of the two languages if not provided by the authors (in this case, the submission deadline is 15 days earlier than the indicated date).
Manuscripts must be submitted – prepared according to the editorial guidelines (see the section “Template for the drafting of the article”) – to: nodesjournal@gmail.com
The debate around the definition of aesthetic experience is constantly evolving, making it a fertile and inexhaustible field of discussion. Various disciplines – from philosophy to psychology and the cognitive sciences – have characterised aesthetic experience in distinct ways, at times describing it as unique and different from non-aesthetic experience, and at other times as similar or comparable to it in its neural processes. Beyond disciplinary definitions – which often overlap or diverge mainly in their framing perspectives – aesthetic experience remains a rich territory for exploring and stimulating human response. The artwork is, for various reasons, a unique stimulus for human beings, capable of activating a broad and variable range of behavioral and neural responses.
Today, thanks to dialogue among diverse disciplines and the use of advanced technologies that allow the study of behavioral and psychological phenomena in ecological settings, we are witnessing a renewed scientific and cultural interest in the potential of art as a tool for innovation, transformation, and well-being – both individual and collective.
Within this theoretical framework, Nodes welcomes contributions on art and aesthetic experience from the perspectives of multiple disciplines – including aesthetics, philosophy, and neuroscience, as well as anthropology, sociology, communication, and media studies.
Types of contributions
- Experimental research articles
- Theoretical essays
- Review articles
- Opinion papers
Nodes
Nodes is a peer-reviewed scientific journal founded in 2011 by Numero Cromatico, an artist, research center, and publishing house composed of scholars from both humanities and science fields. The journal aims to present and disseminate scientific research from a variety of disciplines – including empirical aesthetics, psychology of art, and cognitive neuroscience – within the broader framework of the relationship between art and neuroscience. Through this purpose, Nodes has become a ground for discussing the most current aesthetic and neuroscientific theories concerning art perception and experience, with the broader aim of investigating, studying, and deepening our understanding of human functioning. Currently, Nodes is the only Italian journal specialising in this field and has thus become a reference point for experts, scholars from related disciplines, students, and non-specialists, both nationally and internationally.
Nodes is classified as a Class A scientific journal in the 11/C4 area by the National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes (ANVUR) for the purposes of the Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale (ASN).
What we publish
Nodes is a biannual journal that publishes essays, scientific articles, and opinion papers exploring the perceptual-cognitive, psychological, neural, and cultural mechanisms underlying aesthetic experience in its broadest sense.