Call for Papers: History and Philosophy of Computing (HaPoC) Conference
Submissions are open for the 8th edition of the History and Philosophy of Computing (HaPoC) Conference that will take place on December 17-19, 2025, at RWTH Aachen University (Germany) on behalf of the DHST/DLMPST Commission for the History and Philosophy of Computing (HaPoC).
Important dates:
- Submission deadline: May 25, 2025
- Notification of acceptance/rejection: July 31, 2025
- Conference: December 17-19, 2025
About the conference:
Since 2011, the biennial History and Philosophy of Computing (HaPoC) conference series has contributed to building an interdisciplinary community and environment to address the various facets of computing and computing technology. HaPoC aims to bring together scholars from a broad range of disciplines to discuss the past and present cultures, practices and images of computing.
We welcome contributions from researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds, such as history, philosophy, sociology, computer science and software engineering, cultural and media studies, computational sciences, design and art. We invite contributors to share their expertise in respective areas and openly engage in interdisciplinary discussions. Topics include, but are not limited to:
- Historical and philosophical dimensions of computing practices
- Social and cultural aspects of computing
- Computing and the arts
- New forms of computing, such as neuromorphic computing
- Ethical and legal aspects of computing
- Reflecting and historicizing AI
We look forward to submissions by scholars from all career stages and aim at diversity of participants in terms of demographics that include gender, career stage/track, geographical location, and institutional affiliation.
Find out more on the HaPoC website (with links to past conferences).
Submission procedure:
Please submit to hapoc2025@khk.rwth-aachen.de a 2-page proposal in PDF format containing:
- an anonymized abstract (1 page, ca. 700 words) for double-blind review
- a max. 1-page statement of your name, affiliation, research focus, academic activities and optionally publications (max. 5).
Acceptance notifications will be sent by July 31, 2025.
There are no conference fees and travel grants will be offered to early career scholars, further information will follow.
We look forward to meeting you at HaPoC-8 in Aachen!
Confirmed Keynote Speakers:
Robin K. Hill, University of Wyoming, US
Alexandre Hocquet, Université de Lorraine, France
Confirmed Members of the Program Committee:
Arianna Borrelli, TU Berlin and RWTH Aachen, Germany
Jianqing Chen, Washington University at Saint Louis, US
Jack Copeland, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, NZ
Beatrice Fazi, University of Sussex, UK
Gabriele Gramelsberger, RWTH Aachen, Germany
Thomas Haigh, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, US
Andrei Korbut, CAIS Center for Advanced Internet Studies Bochum, Germany
Ben Peters, University of Tulsa, US
Mate Szabo, University of Southern California, US
Local Organising Committee at RWTH Aachen University:
Gabriele Gramelsberger (philosophy of science)
Stefan Böschen (sociology of science)
Dawid Kasprowicz (philosophy of science)
Phillip Roth (science and technology studies)
Saskia Nagel (ethics of science)
Torsten Voigt (science and technology studies)
Find the Call as a pdf document here.
c:o/re Movie Nights
We are looking forward to the collaboration with the film studio of RWTH Aachen University! As part of the lecture series of the Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re) in the summer semester “Lifelikeness” we will show two movies:
May 29: Her by Spike Jonze (2013), at 8:15 pm. As an introduction before the film, philosopher Ben Woodard (ICI Berlin) will give a lecture entitled “Ideal Locale – her and the envelope function of idealist predication”. The lecture will take place on May 29 at 3 pm at Theaterstraße 75. Please send us an email if you would like to come to the lecture: events@khk.rwth-aachen.de
June 11:. I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK by Park Chan-wook. The film will be preceded by a short introduction and followed by a discussion moderated by the Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research.
By “Lifelikeness” we mean the representation and/or imitation of living beings in science and technology in fields such as robotics, synthetic biology or AI and neuromorphic computing. We ask how their increasing complexity mimics not only a fixed notion of life, but also the understanding of “life” as such.
Further information on the lecture series can be found on this page.
Unfelt Treshold: Art Installation & Conversation on Fluctonomous Emergence
Unfelt Threshold is a project in which Japanese artist Aoi Suwa is indirectly linking together various pieces of objects and images, exhibiting the creations that she has produced over the years. As part of the project, c:o/re Senior Fellow Masahiko Hara and Aoi Suwa will stage a live installation at RWTH Aachen University’s Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re) and engage in a conversation on “Fluctonomous Emergence”, a term coined by Masahiko Hara. His research focuses on the integration of art strategies in science and technology and introduces a new concept of natural intelligence based on the emergent functions of autonomous ambiguous systems that exhibit fluctuant behavior.
This project stems from the concept of “shiki-ik” (識閾, the threshold of consciousness), the boundary where sensations and reactions occur in response to stimuli. The threshold through which transitions occur from the unconscious to the conscious, and vice versa, is the gateway of shifting between consciousness and unconsciousness.
Aoi Suwa continues to employ experimental techniques to create works focused on phenomena that can only be witnessed in situ, developing what could be described as an approach aimed at perceiving thresholds that emerge through the process of traversing back and forth between the realms of the perceivable/imperceivable and conscious/unconscious.
Through this project, we would like to explore its potential as a means of expressing the complexity and the lifelikeness of our current age and seek to reconsider our sustainable social systems surrounded by both living and non-living systems.
The installation can be viewed until 22 February 2024 by prior registration with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.
Toxic Material(itie)s: Eco-Material Entanglements in Art
Workshop at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re)
6 – 7 December 2023
Organized by
Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re) &
Christian Berger (Universität Siegen), Ruby de Vos (University of Groningen),
Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
Our workshop sets out from the obvious, yet underexplored assumption, that much of the very stuff that art is made of is toxic. Whether working in the studio, in the dark room, in the quarry, or at contaminated sites, artists have been, and continue to be, exposed to a wide range of toxic materials. But exposure always goes hand in hand with its inevitable corollary, pollution—from the dumped toxic waste generated by the production of photographic materials to the air and water pollution generated by marble extraction. The toxicity of artistic materials extends far beyond the hazards of the artist’s job—they are part of larger environmental issues. So what can we learn when we explore artworks through the lens of their materiality within an expanded frame that is attentive to their art historical as well as environmental and sociopolitical context?
See the full program here.
To attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de
Lecture and discussion with Phil MacNaghten: The knowledge politics of making anticipatory knowledge
On October 12, Phil Macnaghten will give a talk at c:o/re about The knowledge politics of making anticipatory knowledge. This event is part of the 5th STS-Forum at RWTH Aachen University.
Tagung: Briefe des 15. Jahrhunderts als Quellen für interkulturelle Kontakte zwischen Italien und dem Osmanischen Reich
From the 19th to 20th October 2023, a conference on “Briefe des 15. Jahrhunderts als Quellen für interkulturelle Kontakte zwischen Italien und dem Osmanischen Reich” will take place at c:o/re, organized by Florian Hartmann.
SFU Workshop on Transdisciplinary Pathways in Educational Research: Learning, ecology, media and beyond
On April 25th c:ore team member Alin Olteanu will be joining Natasa Lackovic (Lancaster University) and Cary Campbell (Simon Fraser University) for an online workshop, organized by the Research Hub @ Faculty of Education of Simon Fraser University, on Transdisciplinary Pathways in Educational Research: Learning, ecology, media and beyond. To attend, please register through the Simon Fraser University website, where you can also find more information. The description of the workshop is also below.
Transdisciplinary Pathways in Educational Research: Learning, ecology, media and beyond
The potential of transdisciplinary research and education has been lauded and discussed for decades. Despite often lofty promises, many have remarked on the lack of meaningful transdisciplinary research and teaching—ironically in universities, where it is most expected. Very little research presents or explores conceptual-philosophical frameworks (or pathways) for how to study and engage in transdisciplinary inquiry and questioning. Our workshop aims to address this theory gap, building from our team’s research expertise in educational semiotics and uniting theoretical perspectives from bio-semiotics, multimodality, and new socio-materiality studies.
Participants and presenters will collaboratively articulate transdisciplinary problems by distinguishing transdisciplinary methodologies and theoretical frameworks from related inter- and cross-disciplinary approaches. We specifically address transdisciplinary challenges associated with climate crisis (the Anthropocene) and the rapid proliferation of digital-media technologies, focusing on the continuity of environmental and embodied learning and digital media-learning.
Navigating Interdisciplinarity
If you would like to know more about the Navigating Interdiscplinarity workshop, which was organized by c:o/re, together with CAPAS and the Marsilius Kolleg Heidelberg, which hosted it, the CAPAS newsletter features an insightful article, here. You can also see our previous reflexion on the workshop, on the c:o/re website, here.
Models of complex systems as scientific-public boundary objects: The case of climate change. Complexity and Transdisciplinarity Graduate School of the Center for Advanced Studies (Aix-Marseille University), February 27-28
On February 27-28, 2023, the Complexity and Transdisciplinarity Graduate School of the Center for Advanced Studies (IMéRA), Aix-Marseille University is hosting an event on “Models of complex systems as scientific-public boundary objects. The case of climate change“, organized by Gabriele Gramelsberger and Alexandre Hocquet (Lorraine University, c:o/re alumni). To register, kindly contact Solenne Bruhl (solenne.BRUHL@univ-amu.fr). The event will feature the following talks:
27.2.2023, 14-16h Complex systems, climate modeling and managing of uncertainties – Managing the complexity of knowledge production
Gabriele Gramelsberger
28.2.2023, 10-12h Community models, standards and platforms: Managing the complexity of global collaboration and policy
Gabriele Gramelsberger
28.2.2023, 14-16h Research software: Managing the complexity of collaborative programming
Gabriele Gramelsberger & Alexandre Hocquet
Talk by Stefan Böschen at the Austrian Academy of Sciences: Engineering turn? The shift in research cultures as a challenge for science research
On Tuesday, March 28, Stefan Böschen is presenting the work of c:o/re at the Institute for Technology Assessment at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. You can find the abstract and practical information on how to register on the website of the Institute for Technology Assessment, here.
