Call for Papers

Disruption is as much a volatile as it is a versatile concept. While we fear disruption when we want a plan to work or a person to succeed, disruption often is hailed as the condition for success itself. Finding something ‘new’ is still a guiding principle of economic, social, and academic work, insinuating a necessary break with whatever is deemed ‘old’. Terms like “disruptive innovation”, “radical change” and “creative destruction” point to myths of disruption that fuel paradigms like “growth”, “progress” and “future” in ways which have been thoroughly critiqued by academics, scientists, and activists alike for their conditions as well as their consequences – privileging the few over the many, ignoring tradition and producing ever more minute ‘change’, resulting in environmental destruction, social and economic instability etc. Yet, disruption, innovation, and future seem to promise something that we want to hold on to: protest, change, and the possibility of creating spaces for a more just society that differs from a status quo – not least a “we” that is able to act, adapt, and persist.

The realms in which disruption comes to play are, thus, many and diverse - tech, art, and politics are able to disrupt or be disrupted while, at the same time, they seem unchangeable. The force of capital, economic players, and even public institutions to absorb innovation without changing much stands in stark contrast to the ‘disruptive’ language many employ precisely in order to remain on a given path. At the same time, things do change and sometimes even for the better…

This conference aims at questioning “myths of disruption”, though not (only) by disruptive means – exposing something as a myth, i.e., a lie – but by collecting and exploring the programs, narratives and utopias on which our disciplines, research subjects, and collaborative ideals rest and which they produce. Building on Adrian Daub’s observation that “Disruption has become a way to tell a story about the meaning of both discontinuity and continuity” (What Tech calls Thinking, 2020), we invite stories and studies which concentrate on a concept, a narrative or a promise of disruption in regards to future and the places and people affected by this promise. Why would we want to perpetuate “disruption”? How can we differentiate between forms of disruptions? How and when do we encounter disruption in research and when is it necessary to disrupt familiar patterns of communication, knowledge production, interpretation and research practices?

We invite you to contribute recurring topics and problems of your work in order to share and discuss them in the framework of a mythology. Therefore, we invite paper presentations and creative formats which offer reflections on disruptive myths and myths of disruption within a discipline or where disciplines meet. This invitation is one to reflect and critique but also to celebrate and mythologize disruptions with a palpable connection to the person who notices them and the field in which they occur.

For more information and details on how to submit a contribution proposal please visit the event page.