Languages, Literatures & Cultures: A Look to the Future

The Danish physicist Niels Bohr once quipped: “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.” Understanding what is to come is not only an ambition for physicists; it is shared across all disciplines that, in their own way, seek to make sense of the world around us. In an attempt to rise to the challenge, we therefore ask: what does the future hold for languages, literatures and cultural studies? This is of course to ask how the texts we analyse respond to an ever-changing world and represent the future before us all. From utopian imaginings to dystopian nightmares, the shape of the future is a concern for many artists and writers in our precarious contemporary epoch, no doubt sharpened by ecological breakdown and medical emergency. These questions are not unique to the modern area, for looking to the future is an impulse that stretches back in time, even to the projections of thinkers in the ancient world. 

This line of questioning is also to ask, however, what we see when we look to the future of our discipline itself. Research in the interrelated areas of languages, literatures and cultural studies has witnessed many developments in recent decades. While globalisation has enriched society in some ways, it has also presented challenges for scholars working with languages, literatures and cultures, from cultural appropriation to the erasure of minority languages and their associated histories. Emergent technologies and increased digitisation not only allow researchers to engage with literary texts and manuscripts in novel ways, but they also encourage us to question long-established norms and methods in our research. These changes show no signs of slowing down, and so we naturally begin to look beyond our present era and ask: how will we as researchers engage with these uncertain futures in our disciplines? 

Such questions are the focus of this conference for postgraduates and early-career researchers, organised by the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies at Trinity College Dublin. We invite proposals for 20-minute contributions (in English). Topics may include but are not limited to: 

• Conceptions of the future in literatures and cultures across languages and eras
• New work on historically neglected research areas in languages, literatures and cultural studies
• How modern scholars are re-evaluating ancient languages, literatures and cultures
• The challenges faced by researchers working in multicultural contexts
• The rise of Digital Humanities and the use of technology in manuscript- and text-based research
• The future relevance and role of research in languages, literatures and cultural studies 
• How research in languages, literatures and cultural studies sees its own future and how it addresses the problems of contemporary society
• Innovative theories and methodologies in languages, literatures and cultural studies.

Please submit abstracts (up to 300 words) using our online form by 14 February 2022. The form is accessible  with the link: https://forms.gle/HrnNekMAy6jbr7s5A. Alternatively, you can access it on our Twitter page (@looktofuture22). 

See our link tree for more information and our mailing list: https://linktr.ee/looktothefuture2022

We intend to hold the conference on campus at Trinity College Dublin.