Call for papers
Time and Place: Leiden University, 17–19 June 2026
Keynote speakers: Dr. Ramon Amaro (Design Academy Eindhoven) and Prof. Dr. Jasbir Puar (University of British Columbia)
As new forms of exclusion and colonialism are emerging and old apartheid policies reinvigorated, the movement of people, the spread of disease, and the circulation of information become ever more central to our understanding of war, politics, identity, and government. The war in Gaza and illegal occupation in the West Bank are a case in point. This conflict is not just
territorial, it is informational, and the Israeli government employs strategies of withholding care and barring humanitarian aid to preemptively immunize Israel’s cultural and legal self-perception as a ‘uniquely’ Jewish nation-state, against Palestinian life. As the international movement of trans* and queer people is restricted in ways that bring to mind the late 20th
century response to the HIV/AIDS crisis, gender and sex education are thought of as ‘infecting’ children with particular sexual preferences, or encouraging trans* identification in them. Meanwhile, the language of contagion is activated politically and by opposing factions. Where some speak of a “woke mind virus,” others attempt to make sense of fascist protests like the January 6th attack on the Capitol in 2020, or the 2025 extreme rightwing riots in The Hague, the Netherlands, as fueled by viral online discourse and contagious hatred of immigrants.
In response to these concerns, contagion, information, and territory emerge as central concepts of political analysis and critical thought. We invite paper proposals reflecting on the connection between these concepts, and their relationship to contemporary processes of technological, political, cultural, and social subjection, abjection, and debilitation, through cultural and artistic objects.
Responses might encompass, but are not limited to:
Time and Place: Leiden University, 17–19 June 2026
Keynote speakers: Dr. Ramon Amaro (Design Academy Eindhoven) and Prof. Dr. Jasbir Puar (University of British Columbia)
As new forms of exclusion and colonialism are emerging and old apartheid policies reinvigorated, the movement of people, the spread of disease, and the circulation of information become ever more central to our understanding of war, politics, identity, and government. The war in Gaza and illegal occupation in the West Bank are a case in point. This conflict is not just
territorial, it is informational, and the Israeli government employs strategies of withholding care and barring humanitarian aid to preemptively immunize Israel’s cultural and legal self-perception as a ‘uniquely’ Jewish nation-state, against Palestinian life. As the international movement of trans* and queer people is restricted in ways that bring to mind the late 20th
century response to the HIV/AIDS crisis, gender and sex education are thought of as ‘infecting’ children with particular sexual preferences, or encouraging trans* identification in them. Meanwhile, the language of contagion is activated politically and by opposing factions. Where some speak of a “woke mind virus,” others attempt to make sense of fascist protests like the January 6th attack on the Capitol in 2020, or the 2025 extreme rightwing riots in The Hague, the Netherlands, as fueled by viral online discourse and contagious hatred of immigrants.
In response to these concerns, contagion, information, and territory emerge as central concepts of political analysis and critical thought. We invite paper proposals reflecting on the connection between these concepts, and their relationship to contemporary processes of technological, political, cultural, and social subjection, abjection, and debilitation, through cultural and artistic objects.
Responses might encompass, but are not limited to:
- Metaphors of disease in relation to data and territoriality.
- Neoliberal governmentality, borders, and racialized data.
- Technologies and models of preemption, prediction, and inoculation.
- Necropolitics, data, and immunity in its territorial and biomedical inflections.
- Cultural imaginaries and histories of technologized futures and territories.
- War, occupation, and apartheid in relation to information, territory, and contagion.
- Debility and debilitation as endemic biopolitical strategies.
- Insurance, financialized capital, and techno-libertarianism.
- Infection and contagion in relation to BIPOC, queer, and trans* stigmatization and movement.
- Biosecurity, border regimes, and the management of virality (HIV/AIDS, bird flu, BSE, Zika, etc.)
We welcome submissions on these themes across fields and disciplines. Please submit abstracts for 20-minute presentations of 250 to 300 words, along with brief biographical notes (about 50 words) to contagious.territories@hum.leidenuniv.nl by January 31, 2026. We especially encourage queer, BIPOC, disabled, working class, and other marginalized scholars to apply.
Notifications of acceptance will be sent by February 28, 2026. Please note that attendance at this conference will be in-person ONLY. See Full CFP attached or the website (https://contagiousterritories.org/conference.html) for further information. If you have any questions, please contact us at contagious.territories@hum.leidenuniv.nl.
Contact Information
Ilios Willemars, Dong Xia, Maaike Hommes
Contact Email
contagious.territories@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire