4th Congress of the Polish Cultural Studies Association
On 15–17 September, the 4th Congress of the Polish Cultural Studies Association will take place in Wrocław under the theme “Przyszłości kultury. Genealogie, imaginaria, działania.” Nearly 200 cultural studies scholars from across Poland will participate. Discussions on the future of culture will address issues such as climate change, the development of new technologies, current political and social crises, and the pandemic. Held every four years, the Congress provides the cultural studies community not only with an opportunity for integration and debate on the state of the discipline, but also with insight into emerging research trends.
The programme includes four plenary sessions and twenty panel sessions, featuring debates on topics such as how the pandemic has affected our sensory experience of the world, how to navigate the era of big data, and what constitutes the Polish ecumene. A special event will be the panel “Let the Dead Live On,” featuring Olga Tokarczuk. The Congress’s guest of honour will be Professor Tim Ingold of the University of Aberdeen, who will deliver a lecture entitled “The Rise and Fall of Generation Now.” Session themes include peasant genealogies, experiences of climate change, game studies, potential histories, feminist imaginaries, urban nature, cultural policy, populism, posthumanism, public engagement with science and the circulation of academic knowledge, contemporary spirituality and locality, as well as sexuality in the era of biomedicine. The Congress is one of the events accompanying the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Institute of Cultural Studies at the University of Wrocław. It was in Wrocław, in 1972, that Professor Stanisław Pietraszko established Poland’s first cultural studies programme.
