[Commlist] CFP: 14th beyond humanism conference: Technologies-Ecologies and the Networks of Posthuman Care

14TH BEYOND HUMANISM CONFERENCE: http://beyondhumanism.org/ 
<http://beyondhumanism.org/>

CFPs: 14TH BEYOND HUMANISM CONFERENCE:  Technologies-Ecologies and the 
Networks of Posthuman Care

Where?

Posthumanities Research Centre

Faculty of Philology

University of Lodz

When?

2-5 July 2024

CONFIRMED KEYNOTES:

ANNE ALOMBERT

https://llcp.univ-paris8.fr/anne-alombert-mcf 
<https://llcp.univ-paris8.fr/anne-alombert-mcf>

EDUARDO KAC

https://www.ekac.org <https://www.ekac.org/>

RYSZARD KLUSZCZYŃSKI

https://www.uni.lodz.pl/pracownicy/ryszard-kluszczynski 
<https://www.uni.lodz.pl/pracownicy/ryszard-kluszczynski>

Fabienne Brugère

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabienne_Brug 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabienne_Brug>

The images and narratives of crises have dominated the socio-cultural 
sphere over the last couple of years, often anaesthetizing our senses 
and creating a further sense of impasse. As Bernard Stiegler asserts, 
these perplexing conditions require finding out how “to think and care 
otherwise, that is, to change the very meaning of thinking” (2018: 237). 
For the philosopher, to think means “to take care, to care for, which is 
also to say, to act, to do, to make – (the) différance: it would always 
be to think the wound” (2018: 215). Thus, thinking with care implies 
taking actions to heighten our responsiveness to the challenges the 
Anthropocene poses. When discussing Heidegger, Yuk Hui observes that 
“being-in-the-world is nothing but the question of care (Sorge), or 
temporality” (2016: 227). Hui observes that, for Heidegger, Sorge 
constituted a “primordial form of existence” (2016: 246). Derived from 
Besorgen and linked with Fürsorge, care renders ways of being in the 
world and interacting with others (Hui, 2016: 246, 274). Referring to 
Haraway’s claim (2016: 4) that “we become-with each other or not all,” 
Amelia deFalco in Curious Kin in Fictions of Posthuman Care argues that 
“[i]f relating produces being, who and what we relate to, care for, and 
are cared for by has profound consequences” (2023: 5). What is more, 
deFalco rightly indicates how the narratives of exclusion are 
interconnected with being regarded as care-capable and care-worthy 
(2023: 5). Likewise, Maria Puig de la Bellacasa points out that 
processes of thinking and knowing, which are inherently intertwined with 
a multitude of relations, encompass care. In her view,  care is thus 
relational (2012: 198), as acts of care compel us to nurture the 
relational character of our more-than-human lives. The acknowledgement 
of our entangled, differential, interconnected lives activates a 
collaborative spirit of compassion and care to produce ethical actions 
and practices to shape our posthuman futures. Rosi Braidotiti, in her 
latest monograph, Posthuman Feminism, urges us that “[w]e need to work 
together to reconstruct our shared understanding of possible posthuman 
futures that will include solidarity, care and compassion” (2022: 8). In 
her 2018 Nobel Lecture, Olga Tokarczuk writes: “Tenderness is 
spontaneous and disinterested; it goes far beyond empathetic fellow 
feeling…. It is a way of looking that shows the world as being alive, 
living, interconnected, cooperating with, and codependent on itself.” 
For her, “tenderness is deep, emotional concern about another being,” 
“human and beyond human,” in general, it is an attitude, action, 
physical sensation realised, among others, via touch, for instance, in 
relation to technology (Malinowska 2022: 44). Tenderness permeates all 
the boundaries of digital and biological, living and non-organic, beyond 
time and human. It is a click that animates pixels and atoms of water 
that run through more-than-human beings. In other words, the capacity 
for care lies in more-than-human milieux if we wish to develop novel, 
inclusive ways of thinking and writing. It induces the renewal of 
current forms of planetary co-existence responsible for reproducing 
enduring patterns of human-induced inequalities and global power imbalances.

In Art and Cosmotechnics, Hui recalls Smith’s claim (2019) that machines 
entangled in their actions with the world exhibit a form of care by 
their attempt to “engage and modify it” (2021: 241). On a simple level, 
care tends to be discussed more in terms of providing than exhibiting. 
If we assume that care is the category whose importance is recognised in 
both humanities and sciences, maybe we should think of care and AI 
beyond care robots, in other words, beyond what machines can do for 
humans? To what extent can the category of care apply to developing 
neural networks? The conference wishes to explore how care is implicated 
in trans-, meta-, post- human philosophies. Sorgner explains that 
“metahumanism strives to mediate among the most diverse philosophical 
discourses in the interest of letting the appropriate meaning of 
relationality, perspective, and radical plurality emerge” (2021: 41). 
Bearing the “radical plurality” in mind, the conference seeks to study 
how these philosophies approach diverse forms of organic and non-organic 
embodiments, raising new ethical, legal and biotechnological dilemmas.

The conference is devoted to the reconceptualization of the posthuman 
condition brought about by the care turn. We invite you to consider how 
to invent/create networks of care that could bring hopeful scenarios of 
endurance and reconstruction of the planetary mayhem.

The papers should address the general theme of the conference. Possible 
topics may include, but are not limited to:

Posthuman collective networks of care;

Posthuman care and ageing;

Posthuman care and climate crisis,

Posthuman care and technologies of intimacy;

Posthuman care and feminisms;

Posthuman care and ethics;

Posthuman care and digital practices;

Posthuman care and the Anthropocene;

Posthuman care and the social media;

Posthuman care and New Materialisms;

Posthuman care and NGOs and volunteering;

Posthuman care and LGBTQ+ communities;

Posthuman care and disability studies;

Posthuman care and more-than-human knowledge production;

Posthuman care and Indigenous studies;

Posthuman care and non-western knowledge production,

Posthuman care and performativity;

Posthuman care and aesthetics;

Posthuman care and artistic practices;

Posthuman care  and tender narratives and poetics;

Posthuman care and technoscientific experimentation;

Posthuman care and multiple forms of fabulation;

Posthuman care and speculative genre voices;

Submission guidelines

We invite paper proposals including a title, an abstract of 350 words, 
name and affiliation of the author, as well as a short bio with contact 
information. Applications together with a short bio-bibliographical note 
should be submitted in English and in PDF format on easychair.org 
<http://easychair.org/> before  the 31st of March

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=bhc14 
<https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=bhc14>

Deadlines

Abstracts should be received by the 31st of March 2024.

Acceptance notifications will be sent out by mid-April 2024.

All those accepted will receive information on the venue(s), local 
attractions, accommodations, restaurants, and planned events for 
participants.

Presentations should be no longer than 20 minutes. Each presenter will 
be given 10 additional minutes for questions and discussions with the 
audience.

Conference fees

100 euros (early bird until the end of April)

140 euros (a regular fee)

80 euros (PhD students)


*ORGANISING COMMITTEE: *

Stefan Sorgner

Evi Sampanikou

Sangkyu Shin

Aranaud Regnauld

Jan Stasieńko

Tomasz Dobrogoszcz(hosting the event)

Katarzyna Ostalska(hosting the event)

Justyna Stępień(hosting the event)






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