From September 30 to October 2, the congress "New Cultural Geography" will take place at the University of Augsburg. It is organized by the Chair of Urban Climate Resilience and is themed "Speculative geographies of the new climate regime". The call for sessions is now online.

At the conference "New Cultural Geography" (NKG), we explore together what the new speculative thinking could mean for geography. In recent years, speculative thinking - the systematic reflection on fundamental questions of human existence (e.g. knowledge) and the nature of things (e.g. reality) - has experienced a renaissance and developed into a diverse field of academic debate in the social sciences and humanities. Whether in the form of 'speculative realism' (Bryant et al. 2011), 'speculative pragmatism' (Stengers 2011), 'speculative empiricism' (Debaise 2017) or 'speculative research' (Wilkie et al. 2017), all of these interventions aim to create space for alternative futures.

In light of the New Climate Regime (Latour 2018), but also due to the ongoing breaching of the human-machine divide through AI and the global rise of undemocratic structures, we want to further ask how speculative thinking might better enable us to counter these developments.

We invite you to join!

Contributions from all disciplines are welcome to address these questions. In order to promote a structured discussion, the conference theme is divided into three thematic categories: Ontologies, Epistemologies and Geographies.

We welcome submissions and contributions that reflect the main theme of the conference conceptually, methodologically and/or empirically. Submissions from the broader field of cultural geography that do not directly address the main theme are also welcome and will be included in a separate fourth block of sessions.

Session proposals (90 minutes) should consist of three to four presentations or include alternative formats such as plenary discussions, fishbowl sessions or other innovative approaches. These session proposals will be published in advance so that interested participants can apply with their respective presentations. Alternatively, pre-curated sessions are also welcome.
Participants are invited to submit proposals for individual contributions, which will be divided thematically into open sessions by the organizing committee.
 

The Call for Sessions is currently open until 31.05.2025. Presentations or (curated) sessions should be submitted via email to nkg@geo.uni-augsburg.de.

You can find the complete Call for Sessions on the official Website.

References

• Bryant, L., Srnicek, N., Harman, G. (2011): The speculative turn. Continental materialism and realism. Re.press, Prahran
• Debaise, D. (2017): Speculative empiricism. Revisiting Whitehead. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh
• Latour, B. (2018): Down to earth. Politics in the New Climate Regime. Polity, Cambridge
• Stengers, I. (2011): Thinking with Whitehead. A free and wild creation of concepts. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
• Wilkie, A., Savransky, M., Rosengarten, M. (2017): Speculative research. The lure of possible futures. Routledge, London