[PHILOS-L] CFP - 16th Beyond Humanism Conference
Andrei Nutas
16th Beyond Humanism Conference
AI, Education, and Multispecies Sustainability:
A Dialogue Across Humanism, Transhumanism, and Critical Posthumanism
1 July – 4 July 2026
Timișoara, Romania
Conference Theme
Artificial intelligence is changing everything. It is transforming how we work, create, communicate, govern, and understand ourselves. It is reshaping labour markets and economic structures, accelerating scientific discovery, automating cognitive tasks once thought uniquely human, and generating new forms of art, text, and knowledge. It is concentrating power in new ways and disrupting old certainties. The 16th Beyond Humanism Conference invites scholars, artists, educators, and practitioners to explore what AI is doing to our world—and what it means to live in it—through a dialogue across humanist, transhumanist, and critical posthumanist perspectives.
Education stands at the centre of this transformation—not merely as a sector disrupted by new tools, but as our primary means of understanding the world AI is making. How do we educate people to comprehend what is happening? What does it mean to think critically, to be informed, to be a citizen in a world increasingly shaped by algorithmic systems? Education must grapple with AI not just in the classroom but as a civilisational force: How do we cultivate the capacities to navigate a world where truth is contested, where labour is automated, where human agency is entangled with machine intelligence? What does human flourishing look like in such a world, and how do we prepare people—across all ages and contexts—to pursue it? The dialogue between humanism’s commitment to Bildung, transhumanism’s engagement with enhancement and transformation, and critical posthumanism’s questioning of the human subject offers essential resources here.
AI equally transforms how we think about sustainability—and sustainability cannot be reduced to climate change alone. Yes, AI has environmental implications: the energy demands of data centres, the potential for climate modelling and biodiversity monitoring. But AI raises deeper questions about what we sustain and for whom. What if AI-driven biomedical research enables radical life extension—but only for those who can afford it? How do we sustain democratic institutions when technological advantages compound across generations? How do wealth and power concentrate when some can buy more time than others? And sustainability must extend beyond the human: how do we account for non-human animals? AI simultaneously optimises factory farming and decodes animal communication, accelerates extinction and monitors ecosystems. Whose flourishing counts? What futures are worth sustaining?
These questions demand the philosophical resources that the Beyond Humanism conference series has been cultivated since 2009. Humanism insists on dignity and flourishing but must confront technological disruption. Transhumanism embraces enhancement but must reckon with inequality and access. Critical posthumanism decentres the human but must remain engaged with justice. This conference seeks contributions that explore AI, education, and sustainability through philosophical, artistic, and practical interventions.
Possible Topics
Papers should address the general theme of the conference. Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:
AI and Its Transformations
- What is AI doing to the world? Mapping civilisational transformation
- Large language models, knowledge production, and epistemic authority
- AI and creativity: authorship, originality, and aesthetic value
- Labour, automation, and the transformation of work
- AI ethics: alignment, structural critiques, and alternative frameworks
- Algorithmic governance, power, and democracy
- European perspectives on AI regulation
Education: Understanding and Living in an AI-Transformed World
- Educating for an AI-shaped world: critical understanding and civic capacity
- What does it mean to think, learn, and know in the age of AI?
- Human flourishing and the aims of education in a transformed world
- AI in the classroom: pedagogy, assessment, and academic integrity
- Algorithmic literacy, media literacy, and navigating contested truth
- The future of expertise, professions, and the educator
- Lifelong learning in an era of constant disruption
- Multispecies education and more-than-human pedagogies
Sustainability: Ecology, Justice, Power, and Futures
- AI for climate modelling, biodiversity monitoring, and environmental governance
- The environmental footprint of AI: energy, resources, and computational sustainability
- AI, longevity research, and the politics of life extension
- Sustainability as justice: distribution, access, and power
- Intergenerational ethics, wealth concentration, and unequal lifespans
- Sustaining democracy in an age of technological disruption
- Technology, degrowth, and alternative economic imaginaries
- Global justice and the North-South divide in technological access
AI, Human and Non-Human Animals
- AI and animal welfare vs. AI and industrial animal agriculture
- Decoding animal communication: interspecies understanding and ethics
- Animal experimentation and the biotechnologies of human enhancement
- Expanding the moral circle: which sentient beings count?
- Post-anthropocentric ethics and multispecies flourishing
- Algorithmic speciesism and bias against non-human animals
Philosophical Frameworks in Dialogue
- Humanism, human dignity, and the challenge of AI
- Transhumanism: enhancement, inequality, and access
- Critical posthumanism: decentring the human, entanglement, and relationality
- Metahumanist perspectives on radical plurality
- Convergences and tensions across philosophical traditions
Art, Culture, and Speculative Futures
- Generative AI and artistic practice
- Speculative design and prototyping alternative futures
- Bioart, eco-art, and interspecies aesthetics
- Science fiction and technological imagination
- Performance, play, and posthuman embodiment
Submission Guidelines
We invite paper proposals including a title, an abstract of 350-500 words, name and affiliation of the author(s), as well as a short biographical note (100 words) with contact information.
Applications should be submitted in English and in PDF format to bhcsubm...@gmail.com.
Presentations should be no longer than 20 minutes. Each presenter will be given 10 additional minutes for questions and discussion with the audience.
We also welcome proposals for panel sessions (3-4 papers on a common theme), artistic interventions, and workshop formats.
Important Dates
Abstract Submission Deadline: 15 March 2026
Notification of Acceptance: 31 March 2026
Early Bird Registration Deadline: 21 April 2026
Conference Dates: 1 July – 4 July 2026
Fees
Early Bird: 80 EUR
Regular: 120 EUR
Venue
West University of Timișoara, in Timișoara, Romania—European Capital of Culture 2023 and a city with a rich history of revolutionary thought and innovation.
Contact
For inquiries: bhcsubm...@gmail.com
Join us in Timișoara to explore what AI is doing to our world—and how we learn to live in it.
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