Global Theory Forum Spring Symposium

Global Theory Forum (an ESRC-funded working group supported by the LISS-DTP) is pleased to announce, and call for contributions to, a Spring Symposium we are hosting on 24th April 2025. The Symposium will take place in-person, at King’s College London, Strand Campus. It will be a full day of political theory discussion, and we hope that you will join us, either as a presenter or an audience member – please keep the date in your diaries!

While the group has been running a series of idea-based workshops throughout the academic year, the April Symposium will be structured around (borrowing from Hall) a series conjunctural themes alongside a roundtable discussion which will be centred on theorising as a practice.

Accordingly, we are inviting submissions for participants, particularly ECRs, whose research sits within or speaks to one of said conjunctural themes. Each theme will have 2-3 ECR presenters and an invited senior discussant. We are also inviting suggestions for other conjunctures (see below for details on this). The conjunctures we are welcoming submissions to are:

Ethics and Ethical Thinking from a Global Perspective

Architectures of (Dis)Order and (Mis)Recognition

From the Postcolony, Challenging Global Theorising?

Recovery, Reparation, and Practices of Repair

Hope, Cynicism, and the Politics of Despair

Everyday Resistance and Political Exceptionality

In keeping with the ethos of the working group sessions, presenters are not expected to submit or present an in-progress or proposed paper but discuss a theoretical problematic/question they are tussling with in their research. Each discussant will be presenting their research/theoretical issue for 8-10 minutes, and thereafter the panels will open up to broader discussion. These sessions are aimed to help ECRs feel comfortable expressing ideas in progress while also having some contact with/engagement with more senior academics in their specialist field and discussion with an interested audience. The aim of the day is to make theory more inclusive and more thorough in content. So, if such a format or approach to theory in/as conversation speaks to you please do submit, we’d love to have you as part of the conversation.

The deadline for submissions is 25th January; if interested in submitting all we will require is a title, abstract, and a broader outline of where your theoretical interests sit. We will also be accepting a proposal for an extra conjunctural theme, so if you have a particular theme that you believe has been omitted we are open to squeezing that into the schedule: the deadline for proposing an additional conjuncture is the 15th of December. Details to register to attend will follow in the New Year.

Please email all applications to globaltheoryforum@gmail.com 

Global Theory Forum is supported by the LISS-DTP, and co-affiliated with QMUL’s Theory Lab, KCL’s Research Centre for International Relations, and the London Political Theory Network.