Call for Papers: HGGS Summer Forum 2026 | ImA(I)gining the Future: How Digital Technologies Rewrite Our World
Liebe Promovierende,
hiermit machen wir Sie auf den nachfolgenden Call for Papers aufmerksam.
Beste Grüße
Ihr ZGS-Team
///
Dear PhD candidates,
we hereby bring the following Call for Papers to your attention.
Best regards
Your CGS-Team
HGGS Summer Forum 2026
ImA(I)gining the Future: How Digital Technologies Rewrite Our World
Heidelberg, Germany, July 16-17, 2026
What happens when reality becomes editable, creativity is automated, and our daily decisions are led by algorithms?
Who gets to imagine the future, and who is excluded from it?
The HGGS Summer Forum 2026 invites researchers at various stages in their academic careers (doctoral candidates, postdocs, professors) working at the intersection of technology, society, and culture to engage with these transformations under the theme: ImA(I)gining the Future: How Digital Technologies Rewrite Our World. With a particular, but not exclusive, emphasis on AI, this forum seeks to explore the future of a hyper-digitalized world in a (growing) context of geopolitical change. Rather than asking whether technologies like AI should be used, this forum asks how they transform the present and future of scholarly voices, labor, creativity, and human understanding across languages, disciplines, and epistemic traditions. By foregrounding dialogue across disciplines, the forum aims to foster reflective and critical engagements with digital technologies, not only as a force of change but as a lens through which enduring questions about the future of humanity and society can be re-examined.
Participants will take part in a two-day academic and interactive forum, featuring:
• Two keynote lectures by internationally renowned experts in the Humanities and Social Sciences
• Interactive workshops bridging theory and practice
• An interdisciplinary community of researchers from around the world
• Creative and collaborative spaces
KEY DATES
• Call for Papers Deadline: Please send your abstract to HGGS-FORUM@hggs.uni-heidelberg.de by the submission deadline on (29/04/26). We only require the abstract by this date.
• Notification of acceptance: (12/05/26). The final paper can be submitted after participants have received a formal invitation.
• Deadline for confirmation of participation: (19/05/26)
• Conference dates and place: July 16-17, 2026, at the Heidelberg Institute of Medical Psychology
Join us in critically testing the myths surrounding digital technological progress, questioning its scope and power, and collectively imagining (alternative) futures. We are looking forward to receiving your contributions!
For the extended Call for Papers, detailed submission guidelines, and information on travel grants, please visit the following website:
