Conference
23 Aug
12:00 AM
Until
25 Aug, 11:59 PM
2d 23h 59m
Envisioning (No) Futures: Cultural, Religious and Political Understandings of Possibility
Cambridge University
Cambridge University, 23-25 August 2027
This conference examines attitudes and ideas related to the making of and living in subcultures. A focus will be put on religious and political groupings that deliberately separate from mainstream societies. Often, these groups relate to an apocalyptic (e.g. Jehovah’s Witnesses) or threatening (e.g., punks, eco-activists) future. Such an understandings of the future—whether individual or societal—might include no future, meaning pessimism, the valorising of youth or older age, the negative transformation of the social order, expectations of suffering and catastrophe, utopianism, a sense of past golden ages, existential despair, the invincibility of ‘capitalist realism’, or AI omnipotence (among others). Is it true that a better future can no longer be imagined? Is this a new phenomenon; did religious and political from the past construct or exhibit similar projections and/or sensibilities?
We are interested in how counter-cultures and subcultures conceive what lies ahead—not only for themselves but for their communities, their traditions, and the wider world, and how this influences present life. How do subcultures narrate their own trajectory? How do movements mobilise around (or against) particular futures? And how does age—both as a biological reality and a cultural construct—shape these visions? From punks to Jehovah’s Witnesses, claims about the future are a recurring theme across different subcultures, movements, and groups.
The conference is cross-disciplinary, and we encourage submissions from across the humanities and social sciences, including but not limited to: anthropology, cultural studies, gerontology, history, literary studies, media studies, philosophy, political science, psychology, religious studies, and sociology.
We do not prioritise any particular subculture, movement, or group, whether in terms of demographics, interests, or religious or non-religious beliefs. As examples, we welcome submissions on:
- Youth sub- and countercultures cultures (hippies, punk, goth, hip-hop, rave, etc.)
- Religious sects, denominations and cultures (Jehovah’s Witnesses, Quakers, Diggers, Ranters, Baptists etc.)
- Age-specific groups (youth clubs, retirement communities, ageing activist networks)
- Non-age-specific groups (e.g., hobbies, social clubs)
- Digital and online communities
- Political and activist movements
- Religious groups and movements
- Artistic and literary movements
- Ideas about generational cohorts (Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z, Alpha)
Topics might include:
- Visions of the future (e.g., utopia, dystopia, apocalypse, progress, stagnation, revolution)
- Catastrophe and survival
- Ageing and identity
- Memory and nostalgia
- Nihilism
- Accelerationism
- Intergenerational relations
- Individual transformation
- Technology and the body (e.g., anti-ageing, transhumanism, digital afterlives)
- Ritual and narrative
- Methodology
The conference is designed to encourage unlikely comparisons and fresh theorising about how people envisage the future and the human and material lifecourse. While the priority is group-level understandings of the future, we will also consider submissions on case studies of individuals, including those that illuminate broader cultural or subcultural issues.
If you would like to give a paper or attend, please send an abstract, in which you explain how your work relates to this call, and send it to any of those below by 31 October: