Religion\, Politics\, and Cognitive Warfare: Information\, Interpretation\, Conspiracy\, and the Struggle for Reality Call for Papers and PresentationsDetails
\nThe Call For Proposals
\nThe Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory (JCRT) invites proposals for an online conference entitled \;Religion\, Politics\, and Cognitive Warfare: Information\, Interpretation\, Conspiracy\, and the Struggle for Reality. \;The proceedings will be considered for publication in a special issue of the \;JCRT.
\nThis conference investigates how beliefs\, paranoia\, and conspiratorial modes of knowing shape a contemporary cognitive battlespace in which actors struggle to define truth\, authority\, and reality itself. Drawing on Michel Foucault&rsquo\;s \;Lectures on the Will to Know \;and Julia Kristeva&rsquo\;s \;This Incredible Need to Believe \;(2024)\, we focus on practices of selective fact use and &ldquo\;truth-selecting&rdquo\; that construct alternative epistemic orders while claiming privileged access to what is &ldquo\;really&rdquo\; going on.
\nRather than treating conspiracy thinking as merely political or psychological\, the conference foregrounds its religious dimensions: faith in hidden powers\, moral dualism\, apocalyptic expectation\, and hermeneutical struggle over revelatory access to the real. Conspiracy cultures routinely reproduce theological structures of knowing&mdash\;visions of salvation and corruption\, truth and deception\, initiation and blindness. At the same time\, new forms of &ldquo\;cognitive warfare&rdquo\; reframe these religious energies within state and platform attempts to govern perception\, attention\, and trust. Artificial intelligence\, algorithmic media\, and strategic information campaigns do not only deliver messages\; they create digital ecologies in which suspicion becomes faith-like and revelation is continual.
\nThe conference organizers are seeking proposals of high academic quality that take a reflective and analytical approach to both general and specific topics with international appeal or focus. We encourage contributions from scholars of religious studies\, philosophy\, communication\, sociology\, security studies\, psychology\, media\, and related fields. Submissions should engage religion as a dynamic force&mdash\;conceptually\, historically\, or materially&mdash\;within the cognitive battlespaces of our time. We encourage contributions from a spectrum of perspectives\, approaches\, and methodologies.
\nWe are not interested in papers that simply rehearse or promote particular conspiracies\, or that use the conference as a platform for calling out disliked groups. We are not interested in polemics\, jeremiad\, or de facto advocacy pieces. Instead\, we welcome theoretically informed and methodologically rigorous work that takes the religious and epistemic dimensions of cognitive conflict seriously as objects of critical inquiry.
\nTopics and Guiding Questions
\nProposals may address\, but are not limited to\, the following subthemes and questions:
\n1. Paranoid Styles and Truth-Selecting
\nReligious narratives have always negotiated the boundary between revelation and delusion\, authority and transgression. This subtheme explores how conspiratorial and paranoid styles echo older religious hermeneutics&mdash\;selective citation\, esoteric interpretation\, claims to hidden truth&mdash\;while retooling them in secular or digital forms. How do religious movements or quasi-religious publics narrate their privileged access to hidden realities? What theological and philosophical resources&mdash\;including the Foucauldian genealogy of the &ldquo\;will to truth&rdquo\;&mdash\;sustain these modes of &ldquo\;truth selection&rdquo\; and suspicion?
\n2. Zionism\, Antisemitism\, and Global Conspiracy Imaginaries
\nReligious symbols and myths remain central to global conspiracy thinking\, and Judaism occupies a particularly charged position in these narratives. This subtheme invites analyses of antisemitic conspiracies past and present\, from classical &ldquo\;hidden ruler&rdquo\; myths to their algorithmic reprints in digital culture. How do such imaginaries convert theological motifs into political paranoia? What criteria can scholars use to distinguish legitimate critique of religion or state policy from conspiratorial reinscriptions of sacred enmity and eschatological blame?
\n3. AI\, Platforms\, and Paranoid Infrastructures
\nTechnological systems now mediate belief and belonging in ways that rival traditional religious institutions. As artificial intelligence curates information and personalizes experience\, it also reconfigures how suspicion\, revelation\, and trust are produced and distributed. This subtheme asks whether algorithmic systems function as &ldquo\;paranoid infrastructures&rdquo\;&mdash\;digital environments that reinforce particular patterns of attention and faith. How do these systems become sites of religious projection\, and how do AI-generated and synthetic media intersect with conspiracy\, extremism\, and religious imaginary?
\n4. Cognitive Warfare and the Expanded Battlespace
\nThe concepts of &ldquo\;cognitive warfare&rdquo\; and &ldquo\;cognitive domain operations&rdquo\; increasingly shape strategic and policy discourse\, yet they resonate with deeply theological questions about will\, truth\, and freedom. When states and institutions seek to &ldquo\;weaponize&rdquo\; belief or perception\, they enter into the same struggle for reality long theorized within religious and philosophical traditions. How might religious studies and critical theory help decode the sacred undercurrents of this emerging battlefield&mdash\;its rituals\, its eschatologies\, its doctrines of purified mind and corrupted reason?
\n5. Ethics of Information Control and Scholarly Responsibility
\nReligious communities have always wrestled with the ethics of teaching\, interpretation\, and secrecy&mdash\;questions that return urgently in the academy&rsquo\;s role as arbiter of truth amid disinformation. This subtheme invites reflexive discussion of how scholars navigate the line between critique and amplification when studying conspiratorial or extremist movements. What responsibilities accompany the act of curating knowledge&mdash\;or withholding it&mdash\;in an age when information itself is the battlefield?
\n6. Esoteric and Speculative Knowledge
\nReligious and occult traditions offer rich precedents for contemporary speculative and conspiratorial epistemologies. Drawing on Michael Barkun and related theorists of stigmatized knowledge\, this subtheme investigates how claims to esoteric or speculative truth function as alternative forms of knowing and meaning-making\, challenging empiricist and positivist paradigms. What ethical and epistemic possibilities emerge when the speculative is taken seriously as an object of inquiry? Where are the boundaries between credible revelation\, creative speculation\, and dangerous delusion\, and how do such claims sustain communities seeking Reality amid uncertainty?
\nSubmission of Proposals
\nContributors should send an abstract of 300&ndash\;500 words outlining their proposal and its relevance to the conference theme. All proposals should be submitted as email attachments to the editor at \;editor.jcrt@gmail.com \;with the subject line header: &ldquo\;Religion\, Politics\, and Cognitive Warfare &ndash\; [Paper Title].&rdquo\;
\nAbstracts of papers\, drafts of papers\, or complete papers are welcome\, as well as proposals for oral presentations\, panel discussions\, or short workshops. Accepted presenters will be invited to submit finished articles for peer review and possible inclusion in a special issue of the \;JCRT.
\nPublication
\nAs the \;Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory \;works toward a special issue on Religion\, Politics\, and Cognitive Warfare\, our goal is to create an interdisciplinary forum for rigorous examination of these pressing issues. All conference presenters will be invited to submit finished articles for peer review. Selected articles will be published in a forthcoming special issue of the \;JCRT.
\nQueries
\nFor questions regarding the conference or submissions\, please contact the JCRT editorial office at \;editor.jcrt@gmail.com.
\nSponsored by the Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory (JCRT) in Collaboration with the University of Denver
\njcrt.org/religioustheory - editor.jcrt@gmail.com
ORGANIZER;CN=Adam DJ Brett;CN=Carl Raschke;CN=Kev Grane: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260912T061512Z DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20261001T090000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20261001T090000 SUMMARY:Book: Triadic progression of Artificial Argumentation UID:20260912T061513Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6cf9979bf7-9cf6q TZID:Europe/London DESCRIPTION:Triadic progression of Artificial Argumentation \; Edited by Prof. Beth-Anne Schuelke-Leech and Dr. Asma Tajuddin (co-editors) To be published by Windsor Studies in Argumentation We invite papers for an edited volume tentatively titled Triadic progression of Artificial Argumentation. The volume will examine three main themes: formal logic\, informal logic and human-centric approaches. It aims to bring together researchers from argumentation theory\, artificial intelligence\, explainable AI\, AI ethics\, AI governance\, philosophical traditions\, law\, and related disciplines to explore the emergence of artificial argumentation and future research. \; Submission GuidelinesAuthors must adhere to the following requirements for their manuscripts:
\nPlease submit your papers to the email addresses: tajuddi@uwindsor.ca or Beth-Anne.Schuelke-Leech@uwindsor.ca. The book will be published in 2027 (first quarter or before summer).
\nThis book aims to capture the triadic progression of artificial argumentation by focusing on three main themes. We have summarised the topics below\, but you are free to suggest those that seem fit. \;
\n1. Formalisms
\n&bull\; Logic-based construction
\n&bull\; Rule-based systems
\n&bull\; Abstract argumentation frameworks
\n&bull\; Semantics: distinction between qualitative acceptance and quantitative assessment \;
\nmethods
\n&bull\; Qualitative analysis of arguments
\n&bull\; Normative and descriptive analysis
\n&bull\; Norm-based protocols
\n&bull\; Pragma dialectics
\n2. Informalisms
\n&bull\; Dialogue Theory
\n&bull\; Speech Acts
\n&bull\; Argumentation Schemes
\n&bull\; Protocols and moves
\n&bull\; Preference rankings
\n&bull\; Argument relations
\n&bull\; Audience-centric Models
\n&bull\; Rhetorical analysis
\n&bull\; Multi-agent systems
\n&bull\; Scheme analysis
\n&bull\; Presumptive reasoning
\n&bull\; Practical reasoning
\n&bull\; Goal-oriented agents
\n&bull\; Scheme-based rebuttals
\n&bull\; Dialogue games
\n&bull\; Virtuous argumentation
\n3. Human-centric approaches
\n&bull\; Value-guided argumentation models
\n&bull\; AI Ethics
\n&bull\; AI Governance
\n&bull\; Based on human-centric philosophical traditions (for e.g.\, Boston Personalism\, \;
\nChicago\, Pittsburgh\, Harvard\, etc)
\n&bull\; Debating technologies
\n&bull\; Artificial arguers
\n&bull\; Designing virtuous agents
\n&bull\; Legal reasoning
\n&bull\; Medical decision-support
ORGANIZER: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260912T061512Z DTSTART;TZID=America/Lima:20261001T234500 DTEND;TZID=America/Lima:20261001T234500 SUMMARY:Inceptiones et Receptiones II: Logic and Science in the American Continent UID:20260912T061514Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6cf9979bf7-9cf6q TZID:America/Lima LOCATION:Lima\, Peru DESCRIPTION:Keynote speakers:
\nCall for abstracts:
\nInceptiones et Receptiones \;II \;invites submissions of abstracts for presentations on the development\, transmission\, reception\, and transformation of logic and science in the American continent. We welcome historical\, formal\, philosophical\, and interdisciplinary contributions examining both original developments in the Americas and the reception\, adaptation\, and transformation of ideas and traditions originating abroad. Contributions may address any period of our intellectual history. Possible topics include\, but are not limited to:
\nWe particularly welcome contributions that examine the interplay between inception and reception: how ideas were received\, transformed\, contested\, and developed in new intellectual contexts\, as well as how original contributions from the Americas entered wider international traditions. We also encourage studies of particular works or authors that have been understudied.
\nSubmission deadline: 1 October 2026
\nNotifications: by 30 October 2026.
\nPlease submit an abstract of 500 words to caelo@seplo.org indicating the name of the session.
\nTo learn more about CAELO 1 and discover its other special sessions\, please visit the main event website.
ORGANIZER: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260912T061512Z DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20261105T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20261107T170000 SUMMARY:2026 Latinx Philosophy Conference UID:20260912T061515Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6cf9979bf7-9cf6q TZID:America/Chicago LOCATION:College Station\, United States DESCRIPTION:For questions reach out to Sofia Landaeta (sofialandaeta@tamu.edu) or Nora Tsou (noratsou@tamu.edu)
ORGANIZER: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260912T061512Z DTSTART;TZID=America/Lima:20270222T090000 DTEND;TZID=America/Lima:20270228T170000 SUMMARY:Inceptiones et Receptiones II: Logic and Science in the American Continent UID:20260912T061516Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-6cf9979bf7-9cf6q TZID:America/Lima LOCATION:Lima\, Peru DESCRIPTION:Inceptiones et Receptiones II is a session within CAELO 1 (Lima\, 22&ndash\;28 February 2027) dedicated to the development\, transmission\, and transformation of logic\, science\, and philosophy of them in the American continent. The workshop will explore both original contributions that emerged in the Americas and the reception\, adaptation\, and transformation of intellectual traditions originating elsewhere. It welcomes historical\, formal\, philosophical\, and interdisciplinary approaches to the ways in which logical and scientific ideas were introduced\, taught\, developed\, criticised\, and transformed across the continent\, from the colonial period to modern and contemporary times.
\nParticular attention will be given to the works of logicians\, scientists\, mathematicians\, and philosophers of logic and science associated with the Americas\, as well as to the intellectual networks through which ideas circulated across continents\, e.g.\, Juan de Espinosa Medrano.
\nTo learn more about CAELO 1 and discover its other special sessions\, please visit the main event website.
ORGANIZER: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR