Spring Fellows' Conference 2026

Conferences and Workshops

A staple of intellectual life at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM Vienna) since its early days, the biannual conference provides an opportunity for early-career visiting researchers from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds to present their work and exchange ideas in a collegial atmosphere. IWM Visiting and Permanent Fellows, alumni, and scholars from Viennese institutions act as commentators and discussants.

Agenda

Friday, 10 April

9:00 - 9:10 Welcome adress

Panel 1: Renegotiating Economic and Epistemic Inequalities: A Global Perspective

9:10 - 10:55
Matteo Nebbiai: The EU in a Weaponized World: A Club-Based Blueprint for a Post-WTO World
Commentator: Ivan Krastev, IWM Albert Hirschman Permanent Fellow

Vincent F. MOPolitical Concepts and Conceptual Effects in Chinese IR
Commentator: Thomas Eder, University of Vienna

Mary Onguko: Human-Centered AI: Inclusive AI Innovations that strategically empower African Women through Co-Design
Commentator: Richard Cockett, IWM Visiting Fellow

10:55 – 11:15 Coffee break

Panel 2: Mediating and Performing Identities: Towards a Decolonization of Art, Literature, and Media  

11:15 - 13:00
Katia DenysovaVernacular Debts in the Modernist Art of Alexandra Exter and Kultur Lige Artists
Commentator: Katalin Cseh-Varga, University of Vienna

Aleksandra Tobiasz(Central) European Self in the Mirrors of the West and the East (Alma M. Karlin)
Commentator: Hanna Yankuta, IWM Visiting Fellow

Georgi Georgiev: Parallel Monitoring: Intellectual Approaches to Radio and Digital Disinformation
Commentator: Taras Fedirko, IWM Senior Research Fellow

13:00 – 14:30 Lunch break

Panel 3: Liberalism vs. Illiberalism: Between Divergence and Convergence

14:30 - 15:40
Wojciech EngelkingCommon-Good Constitutionalism as Responsive Law in the New American Anti-Liberalism
Commentator: Maciej Kisilowski, Central European University Vienna,  IWM Non-resident Fellow

Emilia SieczkaBetween Floating and Empty Signifiers in the Post-Transition Discourse on ‘Solidarity’: Towards a Genealogy of Populism in Poland
Commentator: Vito Laterza, IWM Visiting Fellow

15:20 – 15:40 Coffee break 

Panel 4: Contesting Hegemonic Narrative-Making: Critical Histories

15:40 - 17:25
Maksym Snihyr: Unwanted yet Documented: The Legal Status of Refugees from Soviet Ukraine in 1930s Romania
Commentator: Ayşe Çağlar, IWM Permanent Fellow

Edward KnudsenTariffs, Technology, and Transfer Unions: The Historical Origins of European Economic (Dis)Unity
Commentator: Johannes Sebastian Leitner, LM Political Risk and Strategy Advisory, Vienna

Tomasz Wiśniewski: Postsecular Criticism of History.
Commentator: Ludger Hagedorn, IWM Permanent Fellow

17:25 – 17:35 Conclusions 

Partnership

While the conference is an internal event for the IWM community, external visitors are welcome to attend upon request. Should you wish to participate, please reach out to the IWM Team at eventmanagement@iwm.at.