(Un)certainties and (Re)inventions

Engaging with the critical challenges of our time, the congress proposes a twofold inquiry: first, into the global consequences of technological acceleration, epistemic fragmentation and the theoretical as well as social impact of artificial intelligence; and second, into the social, political and geo-specific conditions under which human life becomes liveable, precarious or expendable. Taken together, these perspectives illuminate how contemporary technologies and ethical–political regimes jointly reshape not only the humanities as a field of inquiry but also the very category of the human itself: its normative constructions, boundaries, vulnerabilities, exclusions and possible futures.

Although the crisis of narrative and poetic forms has been repeatedly diagnosed since at least the modernist period, we propose to approach its contemporary configurations through two intertwined dynamics whose decisive acceleration can be traced to the 1980s: the growing commercialisation and affective intensification of cultural production, and the progressive marginalisation of cognitive elaboration. These tendencies unfold alongside broader processes of formal disintegration and symbolic exhaustion, producing what may be described as a para-pathological condition of literary space itself, marked by disorientation, proliferating individual poetics, and recurring images of emptiness and finality. Against this background, the congress foregrounds practices of (re)invention of temporalities, imaginaries and modes of knowledge, with particular attention to storytelling as a transhistorical dispositif capable of reconfiguring time and space. Far from constituting a retreat into archaism, storytelling emerges here as a critical operator through which contemporary cultures negotiate rupture, uncertainty and survivability, enabling alternative articulations of pasts, presents and futures at moments when established narrative and poetic paradigms appear exhausted.

In dialogue with these overarching concerns, this year’s congress is further structured around a series of thematic sections, to which interested participants are invited to submit proposals addressing specific conceptual, methodological and geo-cultural perspectives.

More information can be found in the CfP [PDF].

Proposals (up to 300 words), including key references and a short bio, should be sent directly to the section organizers by 30 June 2026. Presentations should be no longer than 20 minutes.

The languages of submission are specified in each CfP. To support inclusive international discussion, contributors to multilingual sessions who submit in languages other than English are kindly invited to provide an English translation of their presentation or supplementary materials.The congress also offers an Early Career Researchers General Session: (Un)certainties and (Re)inventions, intended for students and PhD candidates. Doctoral candidates may choose to submit their proposals either to this general session or to any of the thematic sections.

Key dates

16 February-31 March: Submission period for proposals of thematic sections

15 April: Publication of the CFP for abstracts addressed to the approvedthematic sections and to a general session dedicated to early-career researchers

15 April-30 June: Submission period for individual abstracts.

2-4 December 2026 – 5th International Humanities-Society-Identity Congress. (Un)certainties and (Re)inventions.

Fees

Normal fee: 150 euro / 630 zł
Reduced fee (PhD Candidates): 70 euro / 290 zł
Fee waiver: Employees & PhD Candidates of the Faculty of Modern Languages of the University of Warsaw, Students