Human Rights, Violence and Dictatorship - 9th International Interdisciplinary Conference

Conference online (via Zoom)

CFP:

In the time when human rights are violated on a regular basis, violence triumphs, and feeble democracies ever more often back down before authoritarian rule, there obviously arises the need to reflect on the possible ways of counteracting such phenomena. Our interdisciplinary conference is intended as a fitting opportunity for this reflection. We would like to look at various manifestations of dictatorship, violence and human rights violation, whether historical or current. We will describe them in political, social, psychological, cultural and many other terms. We also want to devote considerable attention to how the situation of human rights and dictatorship is represented in artistic practices: in literature, film, theatre or visual arts.

During our previous conferences on human rights, violence and dictatorship  we hosted over 300 scholars representing universities and research institutions from all over the world.

We invite researchers representing various academic disciplines: history, politics, psychology, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, literary studies, theatre studies, film studies, fine arts, design, memory studies, migration studies, consciousness studies, dream studies, gender studies, postcolonial studies, medical sciences, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, cognitive sciences, economics, law and other.

Different forms of presentations are encouraged, including case studies, theoretical investigations, problem-oriented arguments, and comparative analyses.

We will be happy to hear from both experienced scholars and young academics at the start of their careers: doctoral students. We also invite all persons interested in participating in the conference as listeners, without giving a presentation.
We hope that due to its interdisciplinary nature, the conference will bring many interesting observations on and discussions about the role of human rights and dictatorship in the past and in the present-day world.

Our repertoire of suggested topics includes but is not restricted to:

I. Societies

• Genocides and ethnic cleansing

• Slavery and forced labor

• Nationalism, chauvinism, and xenophobia

• Religious dictatorships

• The Holocaust and totalitarian regimes

• Apartheid and systemic segregation

• (Neo)Nazism and political extremism

• Digital surveillance states and techno-authoritarianism

• Ecocide and climate injustice as human rights violations

II. Individuals

• Domestic and gender-based violence

• Mobbing and workplace harassment

• Bullying in schools and the military

• Sexual abuse and exploitation

• Sadomasochism and power dynamics

• Symbolic violence and social exclusion

• Economic discrimination and ageism

• Cyberbullying, doxxing, and online hate speech

• Algorithmic bias and discrimination in AI systems

III. Defense of Human Rights

• Human rights organizations and humanitarian missions

• Resistance movements and civil disobedience

• The ethos of the freedom fighter

• Conspiracies, protests, and revolts

• Racial equality and the performativity of race

• Women's, LGBTQ+, and disability rights

• Intersections of human rights and animal rights

• Digital activism, hashtags, and cyber-resistance

• The role of whistleblowers in exposing state violence

IV. Fallen Dictatorships

• Democracies in transition and post-communist states

• Amnesties, pardons, and transitional justice

• The revenge of the oppressed versus legal accountability

• Criminal courts and international tribunals

• The "escape from freedom" and regime nostalgia

• Psychological portraits of dictators

• The weaponization of nostalgia in populist politics

• De-radicalization programs and reintegration of former oppressors

V. Violence and Subjectivity

• The politics of trauma and collective healing

• Fear, despair, and utopian visions

• Violence, discourse, and language

• Dictatorship as a social symptom

• Dictatorship, memory, and forgetting

• Intergenerational trauma and epigenetic memory of violence

• Gaslighting and psychological manipulation in totalitarian systems

VI. Violence in the (Post)Modern World

• Cultural conditioning of violence

• Generational dynamics: "dictatorship" of the young or old

• Conformism and compliance under pressure

• The regime of political correctness and censorship

• Democracy and the tyranny of the majority

• Tensions between democracy, liberalism, and the free market

• Violence and propaganda in digital and mass media

• Deepfakes, disinformation, and the death of truth in the digital age

• Hybrid warfare, proxy conflicts, and invisible violence

VII. Literature and the Arts

• Art and literature documenting human rights violations

• Aesthetics and narratives of violence

• Artistic practices engaged in the defense of human rights

• Art and literature as tools of censorship or rights violations

• AI-generated art: authorship, censorship, and ethical boundaries

• Cancel culture vs. freedom of artistic expression

• The architecture of oppression: monuments, ruins, and political space

Please submit abstracts (no longer than 300 words) of your proposed 20-minute presentation, together with a short biographical note, by 30 September 2026