Workshop @Goldsmiths London: (Post-)Neoliberal Authoritarianism? Culture, Critique and Counterstrategies, Call for Proposals

Call for proposals

(Post-)Neoliberal Authoritarianism? Culture, Critique and Counterstrategies 

Goldsmiths, University of London, June 18 and 19th, 2026

We are witnessing a moment marked by new disinhibited forms of violence, social fragmentation and ideological numbness. This qualitative shift in the (re)production and performance of power is profoundly reshaping societal dynamics and international relations, generating ideological mutations and new subjectivation processes. With the narrative of benign economic globalization now dissolved, and a so-called backlash now admitted as the far-right’s frontlash, what are the relationships between a “homo œconomicus 2.0” and the brutal identitarian, ecocidal, and authoritarian masculinist individualisms amplified by contemporary digital capitalism? In this muddle, counter-proposals and counter-narratives become as crucial as diagnosis.

New inquiries go beyond traditional analysis of political forces and electoral outcomes, aiming to conceptualize the ideological, affective and technopolitical dimensions of these morbid phenomena, while also imagining forms of resistance and counter-strategies. In this line, we want to invite collective and individual projects working within these coordinates to submit proposals for participation in this hybrid workshop. With a core of critical research groups and collectives now in place, we invite further proposals to join this dialogue. In this context, our aim is to shift focus from diagnosis to strategy, using critical methodologies to amplify analytical relevance. We are particularly interested in contributions that will foster an exchange of methods and perspectives in critical research, and engage with one or more of the following axes:

• Critically examining brutalization phenomena in state power, governance, international relations and accumulation processes.
• Cartographies, Methodologies and Techniques: Investigating the role of experimental practices in mapping current issues, resisting and producing new critical insights.
• Resisting Subjectivations, Affects and Ideologies: Addressing the affective, gendered, racialised and epistemological dimensions of brutalized power.
• Technopolitics, Media and Power Dispositifs: Addressing the intersections of state violence, information, technology, and new forms of domination and control.
• Aesthetic and Para-Academic Interventions: Investigating the role of artistic, cultural, and experimental practices in resisting and reimagining hegemonic processes.

Please send a brief description (300-500 words) of your main lines of work, and a proposal for your contribution, to critique.culture@proton.me by March 15.

The event is co-hosted by the Digital Culture Unit and the Political Economy Research Centre, and co-organized by Thibaut Vaillancourt (SNSF/Goldsmiths) and Gustavo Robles (IRGAC/University of Passau), and funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the International Research Group on Authoritarianism and Counter-Strategies.