The Institute for Critical Social Theory is issuing its Call for Papers for the inaugural conference, to be held at Bristol University (UK) on July 17-19, 2025. The conference theme is “Critical Theory in an Age of Social Disintegration.” The CfP can be found below:
The Institute for Critical Social Theory would like to invite you to our first international conference: Critical Theory in an Age of Social Disintegration, which will take place at the University of Bristol, UK, on July 17-19, 2025. We have an exciting lineup of plenary speakers (see below), and we look forward to seeing you. Please help us spread the word about our event. The world is in a tumultuous state. Having just come out of a global COVID-19 pandemic, the world is now witnessing the largest war in Europe since World War II, with tensions between NATO and the Russian Federation at its highest since the Cold War; the International Court of Justice has assessed that state-directed genocide is likely occurring in Gaza, which massacres being broadcast through social media; the threat of a broader war within the Middle East looms, as Israel targets Hezbollah and Hamas, and Iran responds with volleys of rockets; Strongmen are on the rise, while far-right populism continues to challenge multicultural democracies in the U.S., Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands, etc., with their anti-immigrant platforms; The demand for a “multipolar” world continues to challenge the unipolar “rules based order” that was established after the horrors of World War II; Various forms of nationalism, both secular and religious, continue to undermine secular modernity and its multicultural demography; Trump’s ultra-nationalist MAGA movement, crystalized in Ronald Reagan’s palingenetic phrase, “Make America Great Again,” continues to undermine the democratic nature of the world’s last super power. Despite the promises of international connectivity, universal prosperity, and increased democratic control of power, we are living in a time of instability,hostility, and the ever-looming threat of environmental disaster. As Herbert Marcuse wrote already in 1973: the “world is terrible and is becoming ever more terrible, beyond our capacity to imagine.” However, now is not the time to retreat into nihilism or despair, but rather to analyze, critique, and engage in a future-oriented praxis with the practical intent to abate, arrest, and determinately negate the “terrible.”
Just like world-historical moments before, the present time calls for robust critical analyses of global problems. Additionally, the complex nature of the world’s problems necessitates an inter-disciplinary approach toward its analysis. Along with the rest of the world, Critical Theory (broadly construed), has begun to shed its Eurocentrism as it continues to globalize. It no longer only speaks within a Western idiom, but has also learn to commune with the philosophers, sociologists, psychoanalysts, historians, artists, and other scholars from outside of the West, who have an equal concern for the future of the world. Therefore, the Institute for Critical Social Theory invites those scholars who are working on globalized problems from a variety of disciplinary approaches, intellectual traditions, and geographical locations, who engage with these questions and beyond. Possible topics include – but are not limited to – the following:
Nationalism, far-right populism, authoritarianism
Race, ethnicity, gender, and religious identity in modernity
Globalization and its discontents
Decolonial critiques in the study of religion, philosophy, political economy, etc.
Antagonisms between religious voices and secular democracy
Multipolarity and its challenge to Unipolarity.
Inter- and Intra-antagonisms within nation-states, civilizations, and religions
Theory and method within globalized critical social theory
War in Europe and the Middle East
Critique of Ideology
Colonialism, decolonization, and post-colonialism theory
The conference will primarily be “in-person.” However, for special cases, some members of the ICST may join via Zoom.
The Institute for Critical Social Theory (ICST) was founded in 2021 by Dustin J. Byrd (The University of Olivet, USA) and Seyed Javad Miri (Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Iran) as an international consortium of scholars working within the realm of social-political and cultural theory. Interdisciplinary in its outlook, ICST seeks to create opportunities for scholars throughout the world to collaborate on projects, share their publications, discuss their ideas, and network on common interests. The Institute for Critical Social Theory is especially interested in collaborative work that critically focuses on social, economic, and political change as it relates to both the global North in relation to the global South. ICST’s inaugural issue of its journal, Critical Perspectives, will launch in 2025. Please consider contributing to the journal.
For more information, visit our website at: criticalsocialtheory.com
Abstracts of individual papers and panels of 300-350 should be submitted to [email protected] Please include “Bristol Conference” in your subject line.
Friday, July 17th: Paper presentations at BU’s Moot Court.
Saturday, July 18th: Paper presentations at BU’s Moot Court.
Sunday, July 19th: Guided walking tour through of the city of Bristol (optional), wherein we will visit numerous historical sites in the city.
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