“New materialism is fascinated by affect, force, and movement as it travels in all directions” (Dolphijn and van der Tuin 2012, 113). New materialisms are grounded in the idea that matter must be conceived “as actively involved in the (re)production of the world” (Hoppe 2017). Building on earlier feminist critiques of science emerging in the 1980s, these theories challenge foundational assumptions of modern epistemology—such as objectivity, neutrality, and the dichotomies of subject/object and nature/culture—and, for the first time, conceptualize nature as active (Löw and Volk 2017).
The workshop - organised in cooperation between University of Graz and University of Wien-explores three intersecting thematic circles that reflect the breadth of new materialist inquiry:
Ideals of Life
Bodies—Minds—Machines
Ecology, Environment, and Gender
according to the following central questions:
What ethical, theological and socio-political implications arise from applying a new materialist approach, both theoretically and methodologically?
How can the relationship between theory and empirical practice be reflected within a new materialist framework?
Which methodological challenges and possibilities emerge when integrating new materialist perspectives into the disciplines of theology, ethics, social sciences?
We invite you to submit an abstract for a short paper (20 minutes), of no more than 250 words (excluding bibliography)―that includes a title and your affiliation―according to one of the suggested thematic circles per email by March 30, 2026 to: workshop.newmaterialism(at)uni-graz.at
The decisions will be communicated by the end of April 2026. Publication of selected papers in an open-access ranked journal is planned.
More information here