International Conference
Critical Political Epistemology
15-17 September 2026
Organized by the Professorship for Epistemology & Theory of Science (University College Freiburg) in collaboration with the Critical Political Epistemology Network (CPEN)
Kollegiengebäude I, HS 1221
Platz der Universität 3
79098 Freiburg
Registration is open until 1 September 2026. Please send an email indicating your name an affiliation (if available) to:
political_epistemology@ucf.uni-freiburg.de
Questions about the political and social dimensions of knowledge production have been ubiquitous throughout the history of philosophy. In recent years, they have regained prominence under the label of “political epistemology.” Most recently, much of the work explicitly framed as political epistemology has emerged from analytic philosophy, with the underlying assumption that contemporary political issues can be reduced to analytic questions regarding the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge. This literature often failed to engage appropriately with feminist epistemology and philosophy of science, critical theory, decolonial/post-colonial theory, and Foucauldian approaches – traditions that have long explored political-epistemological questions from diverse and influential perspectives. This conference aims to recentre these approaches within contemporary debates in political epistemology. We explicitly invite work that explores political epistemology from an empirically grounded inter- and transdisciplinary perspective, engaging with critical knowledge projects that question arbitrary hierarchies and work towards liberatory epistemological theories, epistemic practices and systems.
Programme
15 September 2026
9:00–9:30 Registration and Welcome
9:30–11:00 Keynote 1
Deborah Mühlebach (Institut für Philosophie, Freie Universität Berlin):
The Epistemic Life of Critique
Chair: Frieder Vogelmann
11:30–13:00 Session 1
Andreas Sorger (Department of Government, London School of Economics and Political Science):
Propaganda, Ideology, and Ideology Critique
Thomas J. Spiegel (School of International Liberal Arts, Miyazaki International University):
Epistemic Class Struggle
Chair: Ayush Bhardwaj
14:30–16:00 Session 2
Franziska Felder (Institut für Erziehungswissenschaft, Universität Zürich):
From Moral Pain to Tactical Resistance: Epistemic Agency and Counter-Knowledge in Disability Activism
Arlene Lo (Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, London School of Economics and Political Science):
Epistemic Epidemic: A Fanonian Antidote
Chair: Resa-Philip Lunau
16:30–18:00 Session 3
Jack Wilkinson (Department of Government, London School of Economics and Political Science):
L’Ordine Nuovo and the Stakes of Political Epistemology
Rose Troll (Institut für Philosophie, Universität Bremen):
On Epistemological Dimensions of Alienation
Chair: Sonja Riegler
16 September 2026
9:30–11:00 Keynote 2
Just Serrano-Zamora (Faculty of Philosophy, Universitat de Barcelona):
Disembodied Embodiment: Expression and Knowledge in Far-Right Extremism
Chair: Ayush Bhardwaj
11:30–13:00 Session 4
Ane Engelstad (Department of Philosophy, University of Bergen):
The Personal is Epistemological
Pierce Robertson-Voth (Department of Philosophy, University of Warwick):
Mediated Ignorance: Propaganda, Institutional Entfremdung, and the Political Ontology of Knowledge
Chair: Anna Klieber
14:30–16:00 Session 5
Anisha Patnaik (University of Delhi):
Epistemic Violence in India: The Criminal Tribes Act and Its Afterlife
Dexter Martin (Humanities Department, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, UAEM Mexico):
Letters from Madness (and Sanity): Psychiatry, Law, and De-subjectivation in Nineteenth Century Mexico
Chair: Melanie Altanian
16:30–18:00 CPEN Meeting
Chair: CPEN Organizing Committee (Ayush Bhardwaj, Anna Klieber, Resa-Philip Lunau, Sonja Riegler)
17 September 2026
9:30–11:00 Keynote 3
Nadja El Kassar (Philosophisches Seminar, Universität Luzern):
Rethinking Ignorance in Critical Political Epistemology
Chair: Resa-Philip Lunau
11:30–13:00 Session 6
Kelly Agra (Philosophy, University of the Philippines Baguio):
Whisper Networks and Hidden Transcripts: The Infrapolitics of Feminist Knowledge
Stephanie Deig (Philosophy, University of Amsterdam):
Defiant Rights Claiming Practices in the Ni Una Menos Movement
Chair: Anna Klieber
14:30–16:00 Session 7
Vasiliki Polykarpou (Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences):
Coalitional Politics, Situated Knowledges, and Epistemic Resistance: Insights from an Ethnographic Study in Athens
Simon Nagy (trafo.K, Wien):
Everyone’s a Critic: Radical Art Education as Practice of Democratisation
Chair: Sonja Riegler
16:30–18:00 Keynote 4
Amandine Catala (Philosophy Department, UQAM – Université du Québec à Montréal):
A Systematic Account of Epistemic Repair
Chair: Melanie Altanian