Call for Papers
International Workshop: Decolonising Utopia? Literary, Cultural and Theoretical Perspectives
5-6 February, Department of English Studies, University of Cyprus
Decolonial Theory (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018) emerged with the aspiration to offer a more radical critique of colonialism and imperialism than its predecessor, postcolonial theory. It has also compellingly revealed how certain strands of postcolonial thought had become compatible, if not complicit, with the very structures they set out to criticise. Concomitantly, one can observe the increasing substitution and incorporation of one tradition by the other: «Decolonisation» is the new buzzword circulating widely across the humanities and the social sciences, and the plea to decolonise is being applied to an ever-growing range of academic fields and concepts. Recently, this demand has also been directed towards utopian studies (Dinerstein 2022; Edwards 2023; Stewart 2024), emphasising the complex and multifaceted intersections between utopia and Western colonialism (Balasopoulos 2004).
Besides this recent development, already since the beginning of this century, leading theorists of Utopia (Moylan 2002; Sargent 2010), partly in response to the ongoing crisis of the utopian imagination in the West, have underscored the need to articulate a postcolonial utopianism. Since then, there has been a sustained effort to broaden and challenge the Eurocentrism of the utopian tradition by including texts from diverse historical and cultural contexts and by foregrounding the utopian ideas of communities whose organisational structures differ markedly from the dominant models in the West. Decolonial critique intensifies these efforts while adding a crucial question: whether, and to what extent, can hope -as what Ernst Bloch famously described as the central affective disposition that grounds utopian imagination- undergo an epistemic decolonisation, thereby unsettling its presumed universality and leading to new conceptions of futurity and spatiality?
Against this backdrop, the following question arises: how can the ambivalent relationship between utopia and decoloniality mutually enrich both fields, making utopianism a constituent element of every decolonisation process that aims to transform, rather than merely contest or critique, the existing order? This conference invites contributions that explore such questions by examining the entanglements of utopian thought, decolonial theory, and literary and cultural practices, with particular focus on the affective, epistemic, aesthetic, and political reconfigurations they engender.


Possible Topics include but are not limited to:
• Utopian imaginaries in colonial and postcolonial literatures and cultural productions
• Indigenous, diasporic, and community-based visions of social transformation and alternative futures
• Ecological imaginaries of decolonisation in green utopias and ecotopias
• Utopian method and decolonial critique: theoretical and methodological reflections
• Temporalities and Spatialities of decolonial utopian projects (futurity, transmodernity, cyclical or «deep» time)
• The affective economies of hope, despair, and resilience in decolonial contexts
• Relations between utopia, revolution, and reform in decolonial struggles
• Aesthetic forms (allegory, experimental narrative, excess, non-linear structures) that reconfigure utopian and dystopian spatialities
Confirmed Keynote Speakers:
• Prof. Ana Cecilia Dinerstein, University of Bath
• Prof. Caroline Edwards, Birkbeck, University of London
Submission Guidelines
• Abstracts (250-300 words) +short bio (100 words)
• Deadline for applications: 6 November 2026
• Submit to: sarris.antonios@ucy.ac.cy
Selected participants will present 30 minutes papers followed by discussion
We intend to approach a leading journal in utopian and/or decolonial studies about publishing a special issue based on the workshop's papers. Further details will be announced in due course.
The workshop is free of charge. Applicants should make the arrangements for transport and accommodation. Information on accommodation and transport will be further provided.
For more information, please contact: sarris.antonios@ucy.ac.cy
We look forward to receiving your proposals!