[Commlist] Call for Papers to the Luhmann Conference 2025

*Call for papers to the Luhmann Conference 2025*


/Topic:/ Programmes. Observed with social systems theory

/Venue:/ University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

/Submission deadline (abstracts):/ 15 May 2025
/Conference dates:/ 09-12 September 2025
/Pre-conference dinner:/ 08 September 2025


Supported by the European Sociological Association and the 
Inter-University Centre Dubrovnik


*Theme*

/“… the differentiation of coding and programming makes the reappearance 
of the third value possible” (Luhmann, 1989, p. 41)/

In observing programmes through the lens of social systems theory 
(Luhmann, 2018), we discover a centre pillar of decided orders and 
structural feature of organised complexity. Programmes guide decisions, 
establishing the conditions under which they are deemed good or bad, 
right or wrong, or lucrative or ruinous. Programmes constitute 
interfaces between organisations and the codes of the function systems 
(Sales et al., 2022; Roth, 2023), but may also refer to, or be 
understood as, forms of moral code (Laursen, 2022), including coded 
preferences for particular function systems. As preference resonates 
with precedence, programmes are also instrumental in creating rankings 
and other stratified orders. Moreover, programmes define what is on 
screen or “on line”, shaping what occupies the centre, and not only the 
periphery, of social attention. Programmes also operate a diverse set of 
guiding distinctions to decide who or what is included or excluded the 
multifaceted segments of modern world society. In this way, programmes 
are compatible with the source codes of all four basic forms of social 
differentiation (Roth, 2025): segmentary, centre-periphery, stratified, 
and functional.

At the same time, the concept of programmes as architectures of code is 
compatible not only with the guiding distinctions of society as observed 
by social systems theory in the tradition of Niklas Luhmann (Roth et 
al., 2025), but also with the key technologies and self-descriptions of 
a digitally transforming society. While the notion of programmes 
predates the digital computer revolution, architectures and metaphors of 
programmes and code have become as ubiquitous today as have the 
computers processing them to mediate almost every aspect of organic, 
psychic, and social life. This pervasiveness now seems to extend even to 
the heartlands of analogue communication, which some argue are currently 
being taken over by technologies (Tække, 2022) that others view as 
hardly more than glorified search engines such as ChatGPT or Gemini. The 
possibility that this very text on programmes has been generated by a 
computer programme adds an intriguing layer of complexity or, at least, 
complication. Whether attributed to a software programme or a group of 
wetware computers, the existence of such opaque text in the age of AI 
underscores the pervasive interplay between programmes as forms of 
social systems and the social systems they shape …

*Read the full Call for Papers here: https://wp.me/pvO07-256 *

/Consider also subscribing to the Systems Theories JISCMAIL mailing list 
for updates at: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/systems/

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