Workshop Critical Theory of the Computational

Date: 16.10.2025 - 17.10.2025
Workshop / training
Format: onsite
Location: Berlin, Germany
Event Fee: Free

Organizer(s):
Weizenbaum Institute

This international workshop aims to use critical theories in order to explore how digital and computational systems are influencing societal changes and how these systems are also part of broader global transformations. It will take place in Berlin on 16/17 October 2025. The deadline for submissions is 30 April 30 2025. The workshop “Critical Theory of the Computational” engages critical theories (both in the tradition of the Frankfurt School and beyond) in order to examine how computational/digital constellations are shaping (upheaving, consolidating, etc.) foundational dynamics in society, and how said computational constellations are themselves embedded in ongoing planetary transformations (such as global heating). In interrogating possible preconceptions and assumptions entrenched in critical theories—such as human exceptionalism, and universalist aspirations—, we ask how these might be rethought in light of computational and planetary transformations. The workshop will explore how computational constellations not only introduce new actors—such as AI systems and human–machine hybrids—but also shape existing understandings of agency and its properties like autonomy and emancipation. For example, the computational may give new opportunities for critical discourse, but it may equally give rise to numerous phenomena in politics and other parts of society that give cause for concern (such as power concentration, erosion of public discourse in liberal democracy, and enormous energy consumption).

https://www.weizenbaum-institut.de/news/detail/call-for-papers-critical-theory-of-the-computational/

Post created by: Lymor Wolf Goldstein