Shapes of Dystopia Conference Programme
16 January 2026 | University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszów (UITM), ul. Sucharskiego 2, 35-225 Rzeszów
Registration and Opening Plenary
Registration
9:00 am – 9:30 am (Central European Time)
Main Hall, Wyższa Szkoła Informatyki i Zarządzania w Rzeszowie (WSIZ) / University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszów (UITM)
Plenary Lecture
9:30-10:30 am
James Mackay (European University Cyprus)
Exploring the Wastelands of Artificial Intelligence: Reading Adrian Tchaikovsky's Service Model after Agbogbloshie
Chair: Paula Wieczorek
Sala Senatu (Senate Room, RA206)
Coffee Break, 10:30–11:00, Senate Room, RA206
Parallel Hybrid Sessions: Morning Block
11:00–12:20
Session A
Chair: Monika Struck-Peregończyk
(Senate Room RA206)
Andrew Schumann (UITM)
Dystopia and Existentialism of Non-Soviet Poets of the BSSR
Iwona Leonowicz-Bukała (UITM)
Invented Sources, Real Consequences: Media Authority in a Post-Truth Dystopia
Katarzyna Dobosz (UITM)
Language, Social Exclusion, and Proto-Dystopian Realities in Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: A Linguistic Perspective
Wiktoria Swacha (UR)
The City as Algorithm: From Prus's The Doll to Netflix – The Dystopia of Everyday Life in the Age of Surveillance and Desire
Session B
Chair: Dominik Stojak
(Room RA104)
Katarzyna Pękala (UITM)
From Promise to Disappointment: the Dystopia of Hype in the Video Game Industry
Zuzanna Poplewska (UITM)
Dystopian Visions of Technological Addiction in Original Poster Art
Thelma Augusto (UITM) - online
Shapes of Dystopia: Diagnosing the Buying to Belong Dystopia
Diana Dynowiec (UITM)
Gender, Discipline, and Female Agency in Divergent
Session C
Chair: Izabela Lenczowska
(Room RA101)
Adam Szydzik, Toruń
Vegetality and Posthuman Relations: Zheng Bo's Pteridophilia as an Attempt to Reconfigure Human–Plant Bonds
Kinga Skowron (UR) - online
"Humanity without concrete, glass, and systems will become merely humans, thinking animals who will suffer more than other species." A forest ecosystem as a metaphor of the modern world in Anna Mazurek's novel (Game Animals)
Julia Siepak (Guglielmo Marconi University of Rome, Italy) - online
Surviving the Apocalypse: Indigenous Futurities and Ecological Dystopia in Waubgeshig Rice's Moon of the Turning Leaves
Paula Wieczorek (UITM)
Laughing at the Everyday Dystopia: Indigenous Humour and Social Problems in the Sitcom Rutherford Falls
Coffee Break: 12:20–12:40 (Senate Room, RA206)
Parallel Hybrid Sessions: Midday Block
12:40–13:40
Session D
Chair: Iwona Leonowicz-Bukała
(Senate Room, RA206)
Kamil Mazurek (UMCS)
Stuck in the joint hallucination. How the LLM's providers have built a new techno-dystopia.
Adam Balcerzak (UW) - online
Human vs. AI-Generated Tweets: A Biometric and Behavioral Study of Audience Perceptions Using iMotions
Mikołaj Birek (UITM)
Kill Yourself, Mikołaj Birek. An AI-driven self-cyberbullying campaign
Session E
Chair: Katarzyna Dobosz
(Room RA104)
Monika Struck-Peregończyk (UITM)
Algorithmic empathy: AI-generated images of migrants as contemporary dystopia
Marlena Szczur, Zuzanna Özarslan, Solas Krasovskykh (UITM)
Brainrotting the Users: How social media algorithms go after our time, well-being and opinions
Aleksandra Pawlikowska (UPJP2)
Publicly Non-Objective: A Content Analysis of TVP Info Before and After 13 December 2023
Session F
Chair: Zuzanna Poplewska
(Room RA101)
Dominik Stojak (UITM)
Woke Wars: The Rise of Idiocracy. A Multidimensional Study of "Woke" in Digital Culture
Anastazja Bieleń (UITM)
Cultural differences in the treatment of LGBT people worldwide and their representation in media: from laws to pop culture
Vongai Petros (UITM)
The Criminalization of Care: Social Justice, Mutual Aid, and Systemic Oppression in The Hunger Games

🍽 Lunch Break 13:40–14:30 | Lunch Bar at UITM, -1 floor
Afternoon Plenary Session
14:30–15:45 (Online)
Nikoleta Zampaki
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
Neganthropocene Imagination in Modern Greek and Turkish Climate Fiction of 21st century
Goutam Majhi
University of Calcutta
Phytodystopia: Vegetal Agency and Ecological Apocalypse in Dystopian Fiction
Chair: Paula Wieczorek
Virtual Coffee Break: 15:45–16:00
Parallel Online Sessions: First Afternoon Block
16:00–17:30
Session G
Chair: Kamil Mazurek
  • Katarzyna Bednarska (UŁ) - Demographic Anti-Feminist Discourse in Polish Media and Social Media Platforms
  • Karolina Góraj (UITM) - Real or Artificial? The New Reality of AI-Generated Advertising
  • Aleksandra Skrzypiec (UJ) - Reproduction of Socio-Cultural Gender in Communicative AI Tools: The Evolution of the Phenomenon and Directions for Future Development
  • Kacper Zenderowski (Jan Długosz University) - The Creature of Digital Dystopia: Reimagining Frankenstein in the Age of AI
  • Weronika Jaworska (UKSW) - Algorithms, Avatars, and the Absence of Anonymity: Metaverse as a Dystopian Post-Reality
Session H
Chair: Katarzyna Dobosz
  • Emilia Pado (UJ) - Dystopia Rising: Environmental Collapse and Climate Future Narratives in Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation
  • Svetlana Baranova (UJ) - Why Climate Dystopias Matter: Imagining Futures, Feeling Crisis.
  • Triparna Mukherjee (University of Calcutta) - Narrating the Anthropocene: Ecological Crisis, Toxicity and Disability in Select Eco-dystopian Novels
  • Sayantani Mukhopadhyay (St. Xavier's College) - Unbounded Matter(s): On Climate-narratives and Relational Living.
  • Aditi Basu (independent researcher) - Environmental Dystopia in the Mahabharata: Analysing Modern-Day Climate Apocalypse through the Lenses of Ancient Indian Literature
Parallel Online Sessions: Continued
16:00–17:30
Session I
Chair: Goutam Majhi
Ammu Ashok (Amity University)
The Transmedia Life of Dystopia: Adaptations, Remixes, and Reinterpretations of Dystopian Narratives in Indian Cinema
Manodip Chakraborty (Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IITG)
Biopolitics of Youth: Functional Bodies, and Posthuman Inclinations in South Indian Films
Joanna Kosińska-Wajcht (UŁ)
Westworld as a Techno-Dystopia of Consciousness and Control: The Transmedia Evolution from Michael Crichton's Film to the HBO Series
Valentina Markasović (University of Osijek)
Some are More Equal than Others: Otherness and Abuse of Power in Disney's Animal Utopia/Dystopia
Kawtar Ettour (Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences of Beni Mellal)
The Occidentalization of The Moroccan Cultural Status Quo between Negation and Negotiation in The Film of 'Asifa Abi'
Session J
Chair: Julia Siepak
Monika Janusz-Lorkowska (UŁ)
The Extended Form of the Book Within the Information Ecosystem in the Context of Timothy Morton's Hyperobjects
Julia Stankala (UJ)
Is the multispecies community possible? MaddAddam as ecotopia of relationships: Nomadic subjectivity in light of Rosi Braidotti's concepts and Donna Haraway's Becoming-With.
Branislava Vičar (University of Maribor)
Shaping Dystopia Through the Politics of the Body: Dissolving the Human–Animal Boundary in Agustina Bazterrica's Tender Is the Flesh
Körpe Elif (Kutahya Dumlupınar University)
Biopolitics and the Capitalization of Life in Churchill's Not Not Not Not Not Enough Oxygen
Danijela Petković (University of Niš)
"Back then, injections were sold to prevent pets from suffering": The Post-Animal Dystopia in Agustina Bazterrica's Tender is the Flesh
Parallel Online Sessions: Second Afternoon Block
17:45–19:15
Virtual Coffee Break: 17:30–17:45
Session K
Chair: Mikołaj Birek
  • Paulina Prochorowska (UMCS) - Algorithms and Digital Dystopia: How Social Media Shapes Our Perceptions of the Future
  • Kami Teper (UITM) - From Subtext to Visibility: Queer Representation in Contemporary Animated Series
  • Weronika Cieślik (UITM) - From Fantasy Pin-Ups to Performed Agency: Gender, Visual Design, and Female Representation in League of Legends
  • Katarzyna Wilk (UITM) - Screens of Normalized Violence: Female Body, Memory, and Resistance in Promising Young Woman
  • Tashinga Mazowe (UITM) - Shapes of dystopia: Feminist utopias and dystopias
Session L
Chair: Manodip Chakraborty
  • Nicolae Bobaru (West University of Timișoara, Romania) - From The Doll to The Handmaid's Tale. A Feminist Rewriting of Domestic Capitalism
  • Pallabee Dasgupta (Agra, India) - Gendered Ecologies and Bodies in Crisis: Dystopian Feminism in South Asia from Padmanabhan to Shah
  • Jelena Pataki Šumiga, Laura Kraljić (University of Osijek, Croatia) - Health on Sale: Biopolitical Violence and Capitalism in Black Mirror's "Common People"
  • Cenk Tan (Pamukkale University Denizli, Turkey) - Neoliberal and Postfeminist Critiques in Naomi Alderman's The Power
  • Twinkle Kumar (Guru Ghasidas Vishwavidyalaya) - From Genetic Perfection to Social Harmony: Surveillance in Contemporary Techno-Dystopian Fiction
Parallel Online Sessions: Final Block
17:45–19:15
Session M
Chair: Goutam Majhi
Abderrahim Ait Abdeslam (Sultan Moulay Slimane University, Morocco)
Deconstructing Dystopia: Critical Readings of French Dystopian texts
Aleksandra Łabędzka (UŁ)
Power over the Word: Language, Memory and Control in Post-Catastrophic Dystopias (The Book of Eli, Fahrenheit 451, The Handmaid's Tale)
Daria Kondraciuk (UW)
Kafka's "In the Penal Colony" and the Foucauldian concept of heterotopia
Martyna Bartusiak (UWr)
We Are All Mad Here: Exploring Connections Between Dystopia and Madness in Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time (1976)
Sumalya Adhikari (Adamas University, Kolkata)
"Walk until there's only one of you left": Analyzing the Dystopian Death Game and Authoritarian Spectacle from a Foucauldian Perspective in Stephen King's The Long Walk
Session N
Chair: Danijela Petković
Wiktoria Sudoł-Kaszuba (UITM)
From Fake News to Synthetic Media. How Technology Shapes New Forms of Disinformation and How Journalism Can Respond
Mateusz Banaś (International Political Science and Diplomacy)
A City in Collapse: Political Dystopia and Social Crisis (on the example of Disco Elysium)
Karol Jaroszewski (WSB Merito)
Internalized Disaster vs Post-Disaster Utopia in Science Fiction
Wissam Bitari (Abdelmalek Essadi University, Tetouan, Morocco)
Exploring Dystopia in Exilic Literature: A Critical Reading of Hala Alyan's Salt Houses
Indrajit Mukherjee (Nistarini College)
Writing the Biopolitical Sovereignty: Revisiting the Bhopal Plunder and Human Protest in Ravi Kumar's Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain
Conference Overview
14
Parallel Sessions
Sessions A through N covering diverse dystopian themes
70+
Presentations
International scholars from multiple continents
3
Plenary Lectures
Keynote addresses from leading researchers
The Shapes of Dystopia conference brings together international scholars to explore dystopian narratives across literature, film, media, technology, and culture. From AI-driven futures to climate apocalypse, from feminist critiques to biopolitical control, the programme examines how dystopian imagination shapes our understanding of contemporary crises and future possibilities.