~"The posthuman predicament confronts us with a fundamental tension: "we" may well be confronting the threats and challenges of the third millennium, together, but "we" are not One, or the Same—we are differently positioned in terms of power, entitlement, and access of the very conditions that define us. "We" are not a homogeneous notion but a complex and diverse one, which reflects the multiple differences that compose "us." But it is nonetheless the case that "we" are in the posthuman convergence together"
— Braidotti, 2025
The Department of English & Modern Languages at North South University presents “Encountering the Human(ities): Anxiety, Storytelling, Futurity,” 2026 International Conference in Language, Literature, and TESOL.
What do we mean by an encounter with the human subject in our contemporary moment? How might we rethink modernity's construct of ‘the human,’ not merely as a rational being, but also as a species deeply entangled with nonhuman forces, such as the environment and technologies? At a time when AI-generated technologies are rapidly transforming modes of being, education, and critical thinking, it becomes urgent to ask: are the human and human(ities) at stake? As educators working in the fields of language, literature, and TESOL, how might we reimagine alternative modes of critical inquiry, pedagogy, and praxis within and beyond the academy at our current historical juncture?
Given the highly polarized world marked by warfare, fascism, genocide, digital colonialism, ecological devastation, threat to identity, and ongoing forms of capitalist and neo-colonial domination, the need for overcoming the limitations imposed by dominant discourses has become imperative. Where do we situate ourselves as thinking beings within these overlapping hierarchies of power? What role can the humanities play in disrupting exclusionary frameworks and reasserting their critical, ethical, and imaginative capacities in a moment of profound transformation? And how might we reimagine our understanding of meaning-making by attending to nonhuman agencies—animals, environments, and ecological systems?
Positioned at this critical intersection, this conference seeks to renegotiate, rethink, and reconceptualize foundational assumptions across literature, languages, cultures, and education. We invite original contributions in the form of full papers and posters that investigate forms of resistance, alternative epistemologies, and world-building practices that foreground the entanglement of humans with material environments, nonhuman life, and technological systems.
