CfA HGGS, Heidelberg: “ImA(I)gining the Future: How Digital Technologies Rewrite Our World”, July 16-17, 2026
27 03 2026
CALL FOR PAPERS
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 day-by-day decisions are led by algorithms?
Who gets to imagine the future, and who is excluded from it?
Digital technologies are no longer merely instruments that support human activity. Datafication, platformization, and a growing algorithmic culture are shaping how we think, govern, decide, remember, create, and research. In doing so, they reproduce structural inequalities, redefine and redistribute power, and blur ontological boundaries between the real and the virtual. Today, digital technologies do not simply reflect society; they alter it. Artificial intelligence (AI), especially, has become the defining buzzword of recent years, as its use is now unavoidable in our personal lives, education, and academic work. Alongside its promises of efficiency, boosting economic productivity, solving complex global issues, and offering speed, scale, and new capabilities beyond human limits, it raises urgent multi-sectoral issues at all levels. At the same time, the mystique surrounding these technologies is not new. What is distinctive today is the acceleration and scale at which digital technologies operate and are reshaping mental health, labor, political discourse, and concepts of creativity, authenticity, justice, and community.
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
Formats and Contributions:
We welcome fresh, inventive, and interdisciplinary proposals, including:
- Conference Papers (15-20 minutes): presentations offering theoretical, empirical or critical analyses related to the forum theme.
- Creative Contributions: artworks, photography, paintings, video installations, illustrations, etc. We particularly encourage contributions that push beyond conventional academic presentation formats and open new spaces for dialogue.
Submission Guidelines
We invite applicants to submit an abstract of no more than 300 words including:
- Title
- Academic abstract (including research question(s), methods, results and keywords)
- Preferred format (presentation, creative contribution)
- Short bio of author(s) (max. 300 words) including name, surname, research interests, subject area, and institutional affiliation
Key dates
- Deadline for abstract submissions: 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.
- 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!
Travel Grants
The HGGS awards 5 travel grants to cover the trip and a hotel (booked through the HGGS) in Heidelberg.
Forum website