Whether you already are a researcher or aspire to be one, feel invited to submit your presentation abstracts. We would like not only to reflect on how philosophy is able to analyze popular culture but also to ask if pop-cultural authors are philosophers themselves by including philosophical content in their pieces.

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As this iteration of the cycle is inspired by the writings of Frank Herbert, presentation submissions concerning his works and horror are especially welcome, yet do not limit yourself to those. Everything dark and unexplainable is welcome! But that is not all...

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There is an almost infinite range of topics you can propose for our conference (and convention!). We are interested in all types of pop-cultural works, genres and activities, including films, TV series, novels, short stories, video games, board games, pieces of music, concerts, music videos, as well as ‘borderline’ types of artworks (comics, gamebooks, visual novels, street art, fashion…), and fan activities (conventions, fan fiction, fan clubs, fandom creativity and behavior on the Internet, LARPs, etc.). Analyzes made from the point of view of any philosophical subdiscipline are all welcome. To inspire you, we present some possible ways of confronting philosophical frameworks with the subject-matter of popular culture below. Of course, we are sure you are going to surprise us with your own ideas.

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• Writers’ ontological tools.

• Are fictional religions merely clones of the real ones or are they so different they need a new philosophy of religion?

• Songwriters as philosophical anthropologists.

• How do utopias and dystopias reflect current opinions among political philosophers?

• Pieces of pop culture as thought experiments.

• Pop-cultural portrayals of science and progress vs. philosophy of science, of nature, and of mind.

• Does popular culture contribute anything to the classic philosophical theories about the great social topics such as war, toleration, justice, etc.?

• Theatre, ritual, education, entertainment… What are fan meetings for?

• Conservative and emancipatory messages in pop culture.

• Philosophical presentations of belonging/exclusion and stereotypes/violence in fandoms (sexism, racism, classism/economic exclusion).

• Can aliens or fantastic species/races be truly and radically Others? Do fantasy and science fiction have problem with epistemology and philosophy of language?

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Due to the very open character of the event we ask you to deliver presentations taking onto account the audience might be comprised of underage viewers and laymen. Please keep highly specialist details for a publication in the journal.

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You can provide your research via poster in a form of interactive argumentation graph if you prefer to.

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All submissions can be in English or in Polish and are free of charge.

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The call will cease on 30 October 2021. Decision about acceptance will be issued until 15th of November.

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