Critical Political Epistemology

International conference organized by the Professorship for Epistemology & Theory of Science (University College Freiburg), in collaboration with the Critical Political Epistemology Network (CPEN).

Programme

15 September 2026

9:00–9:30 Registration and Welcome

9:30–11:00 Keynote 1 - Deborah Mühlebach (Institut für Philosophie, Freie Universität Berlin): The Epistemic Life of Critique

11:30–13:00 Session 1

• Andreas Sorger (Department of Government, London School of Economics and Political Science): Propaganda, Ideology, and Ideology Critique 
• Thomas J. Spiegel (School of International Liberal Arts, Miyazaki International University):Epistemic Class Struggle

14:30–16:00 Session 2

• Franziska Felder (Institut für Erziehungswissenschaft, Universität Zürich): From Moral Pain to Tactical Resistance: Epistemic Agency and Counter-Knowledge in Disability Activism 
• Arlene Lo (Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, London School of Economics and Political Science): Epistemic Epidemic: A Fanonian Antidote

16:30–18:00 Session 3

• Jack Wilkinson (Department of Government, London School of Economics and Political Science): L’Ordine Nuovo and the Stakes of Political Epistemology
• Rose Troll (Institut für Philosophie, Universität Bremen): On Epistemological Dimensions of Alienation

16 September 2026

9:30–11:00 Keynote 2 - Just Serrano-Zamora (Faculty of Philosophy, Universitat de Barcelona): Disembodied Embodiment: Expression and Knowledge in Far-Right Extremism

11:30–13:00 Session 4

• Ane Engelstad (Department of Philosophy, University of Bergen): The Personal is Epistemological
• Pierce Robertson-Voth (Department of Philosophy, University of Warwick): Mediated Ignorance: Propaganda, Institutional Entfremdung, and the Political Ontology of Knowledge

14:30–16:00 Session 5

• Anisha Patnaik (University of Delhi): Epistemic Violence in India: The Criminal Tribes Act and Its Afterlife
• Dexter Martin (Humanities Department, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, UAEM Mexico): Letters from Madness (and Sanity): Psychiatry, Law, and De-subjectivation in Nineteenth Century Mexico

16:30–18:00 CPEN Meeting

17 September 2026

9:30–11:00 Keynote 3 - Nadja El Kassar (Philosophisches Seminar, Universität Luzern): Rethinking Ignorance in Critical Political Epistemology

11:30–13:00 Session 6

• Kelly Agra (Philosophy, University of the Philippines Baguio): Whisper Networks and Hidden Transcripts: The Infrapolitics of Feminist Knowledge
• Stephanie Deig (Philosophy, University of Amsterdam): Defiant Rights Claiming Practices in the Ni Una Menos Movement

14:30–16:00 Session 7

• Vasiliki Polykarpou (Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences): Coalitional Politics, Situated Knowledges, and Epistemic Resistance: Insights from an Ethnographic Study in Athens
• Simon Nagy (trafo.K, Wien): Everyone’s a Critic: Radical Art Education as Practice of Democratisation

16:30–18:00 Keynote 4 - Amandine Catala (Philosophy Department, UQAM – Université du Québec à Montréal): A Systematic Account of Epistemic Repair