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Annual Conference 2025 | Futures of Doing Literature

Jul 09, 2025 - Jul 11, 2025

Organised by Research Area 5: "Building Digital Communities".

For detailed information, please visit the Annual Conference 2025 website

Annual Conference 2025 | Futures of Doing Literature

Invited Guests:

Janneke AdemaMarwa M. AhmedLaura BiegerGimena del Rio RiandeDhritii DuttaAnke FingerHeike GeißlerTill GrallertJack Halberstam, Saskya JainVadim KeylinNicolas LonginottiJohanna MaierskiSulthana NasrinChristopher OhgeAnanya PunyatoyaNiki RhynerSuja SawaftaCarolin SchmidtMark SchmittCaroline Lillian SchoppOlga SchubertJennifer SichelAmina Zarzi 

Please register by 7 July 2025 via the registration form. Venue: silent green Kulturquartier, Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin-Wedding

The 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 July

12:30 | 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

10 July

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 July

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


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 July
Exhibition: 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

Further Information

Image Credit: S. Messner 2025 for EXC 2020 using a photo by Valeria Reverdo on Unsplash.