Organised by Research Area 5: "Building Digital Communities".
For detailed information, please visit the Annual Conference 2025 website.
Invited Guests:
Jamal Abasi, Janneke Adema, Marwa M. Ahmed, Laura Bieger, Gimena del Rio Riande, Dhritii Dutta, Anke Finger, Heike Geißler, Till Grallert, Jack Halberstam, Saskya Jain, Vadim Keylin, Susanne Koelbl, Nicolas Longinotti, Johanna Maierski, Sulthana Nasrin, Christopher Ohge, Ananya Punyatoya, Niki Rhyner, Suja Sawafta, Carolin Schmidt, Mark Schmitt, Caroline Lillian Schopp, Olga Schubert, Jennifer Sichel, Amina Zarzi
Please register by 7 July 2025 via the registration form. Venue: silent green Kulturquartier, Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin-WeddingThe 5th Annual Conference Futures of Doing Literature explores the potentialities, imaginaries and challenges that constantly mediate how literature is practised, studied, valued and conceptualised today. At a moment marked by rapid technological, ecological, political and institutional change, this conference investigates what it means to do literature. This includes not only scholarly and publishing activities but also literature as a social, aesthetic and performative act. Together, we will examine literature as a generative site of unsettling and reimagining, where narratives entail memory, belonging, world-making and transformation.
The conference will take place over three days of presentations, quick-fire talks, interviews with Q&As, roundtables and a participatory fishbowl session. During these sessions, we will critically evaluate how climate fiction and ecocriticism anticipate environmental and postcolonial futures; how evolving reading practices transform social participation and identity; and how themes like sustainability and the politics of scholarly communication can be conceptualised as material-aesthetic practices. It will also explore emerging literary and scholarly forms, including immersive media that reshape reader-text relations, and anarchival or anarchitectural approaches that challenge dominant narratives and institutional norms. These explorations will extend beyond the panels and discussions into the exhibition Among Waves – a sound installation by collective »kaboom« and The Poetry Project – which will run throughout the conference.
We invite you to join us here, in conversation with our Cluster members, associated researchers, fellows and international partners, as we reflect on the ways that doing literature will continue to shape, expand, and reimagine the humanities.
Programme
Please check back regularly to keep informed of updates to our conference programme!
9 July12:30 | Registration
13:00–13:30 | Conference Opening
13:30–15:30 | Panel: Hierarchies of the Past, Entanglements of the Future
With Suja Sawafta, Mark Schmitt and Amina Zarzi
15:30–16:00 | Break
16:00–17:30 | Roundtable: Reading Matters – Literature as Social and Political Practice
With Laura Bieger, Heike Geißler and Hanan Natour
17:30–18:30 | Dinner Break
18:30–20:30 | Roundtable: Past Perspectives on Contingent Futures for the Performing Body – Anarchival, Anarchitectural and Queering Practices
With Jack Halberstam, Friederike Schäfer, Caroline Lillian Schopp and Jennifer Sichel
11:00–12:30 | New Voices, Next Turns: Emerging Futures in Literary Research
With Julius Böhm, Melina Brüggemann, Carla Dalbeck, Dhritii Dutta, Chiara Liso, Nicolas Longinotti, Pedro Mora Madriñán, Omid Mashhadi, Sulthana Nasrin, Elena Patrika, Ananya Punyatoya, Nathalie Rennhack, Anton Terhechte, Laura Untner and Victoria Wirtz
12:30–13:30 | Lunch Break
13:30–15:30 | Panel: Infinite Texts – Digital Editions as Matters of Time
With Marwa M. Ahmed, Gimena del Rio Riande, Till Grallert, Beatrice Gründler and Christopher Ohge
15:30–16:00 | Break
16:00–17:30 | Doing Literature: A Fishbowl Conversation on Literary Futures
Initiated by Dîlan Canan Çakir, Rebecca Hardie, Viktor J. Illmer and Stefanie Messner
17:30–18:30 | Dinner Break
18:30–20:00 | Repairing the World through Fiction: Reading and Q&A with Writer Saskya Jain
Moderated by Torsten Jost
11:00–13:00 | Panel: The Futures of Doing Publishing / Publishing as Doing Literature
With Janneke Adema, Johanna Maierski, Niki Rhyner and Olga Schubert
13:00–14:00 | Lunch Break
14:00–16:00 | Panel: Literature Augmented
With Anke Finger, Vadim Keylin and Carolin Schmidt
16:00–16:30 | Break
16:30–17:30 | Exhibition Talk: Among Waves. A Sound Installation by Kollektiv »kaboom« and The Poetry Project
With Jamal Abasi, Susanne Koelbl and Carolin Schmidt
17:30–18:00 | Conference Round Up
18:00–19:00 | Reception with International Partners
19:00 | Summer Party with the Adriano Celentano Gebäckorchester
9–11 JulyExhibition: Among Waves. A Sound Installation by Kollektiv »kaboom« and The Poetry Project
Open for the entire duration of the conference from Wednesday, 15:30 to Friday, 19:00
Time & Location
Jul 09, 2025 - Jul 11, 2025
silent green Kulturquartier
Gerichtstraße 35
13347 Berlin-Wedding