CURE SYMPOSIUM 2026
WHEN
—
WHERE
Innovation Center A2 1
Seminar room 3.05
Saarland University
LANGUAGES
ENGLISH & FRENCH
PROGRAMME
From 25 to 26 June 2026, the Käte Hamburger Centre CURE’s second annual conference will explore the social dimensions of cultural practices of reparation, asking what forms utopian thinking are still possible in a present shaped by dystopian expectations of the future. The international conference will take place at the Innovation Center on the campus of Saarland University (Building A 2.1), beginning on Thursday, 25 June, at 9:30 a.m.
The conference invites participants to reflect on utopian thinking as a critical, creative, and political practice. Since the end of the Cold War, and following influential theses such as “the end of history” (Francis Fukuyama), utopian imaginations have often been discredited as naive or dangerous. Today, however, global crises are making their renewed relevance increasingly obvious. The conference brings together perspectives from literature, history, ecology, and political theory to ask: What role can utopian thinking play today? How can we imagine alternative futures that are fairer and more sustainable? How might utopian visions be understood as a form of “reparation” – not merely in the sense of restitution, but as a creative response to irreversible damage and social ruptures? The focus will be on contemporary forms of utopian imagination, in fields including literature, ecological movements, and local initiatives. Together, we will explore how utopian thinking can make marginalised perspectives visible, challenge dominant epistemic orders, and open up new spaces of possibility.
The conference is an invitation to imagine positive futures beyond resignation and fatalism.
Attendance at the conference is free of charge. To attend, please register by writing to kontakt@khk.uni-saarland.de.
Conference convenors:
Julien Jeusette / Markus Messling / Laurens Schlicht /
For more information contact Anna Warum, kontakt@khk.uni-saarland.de
Thursday, 25 June 2026
10:00 AM | Introduction
Markus Messling, Julien Jeusette & Laurens Schlicht (CURE)
PANEL 1
10:30 AM | Anxiety and the Possibility to Imagine Otherwise
Juliane Rebentisch (HFBK Hamburg)
11:30 AM | Alchimie de l’encre et du détergent: utopies et abjections du travail reproductif
Justine Huppe (Université de Liège)
PANEL 2
2:00 PM | The Unthought Utopia of Permanent Repair
Yves Citton (Université Paris 8)
3:00 PM | De la critique du présentisme au présent comme zone à défendre
Julien Pieron (CURE)
PANEL 3
4:30 PM | Écarter le négatif, ou comment réparer l’après violence ? Histoire de la révolution française, dans un rapport passé/présent
Sophie Wahnich (CNRS)
Friday, 26 June 2026
PANEL 4
9:30 AM | Materiality of Utopia
Tijana Vujošević (University of British Columbia)
10:30 AM | Ursprung ist das Ziel: Karl Kraus, Socialism, and the Problem of Civilization
Troy Vettese (University of California, Berkeley)
11:30 AM | Walking with the Saar: From Situated Knowledge to Reparative Futures
Yi-Ting Wang (CURE)
PANEL 5
2:00 PM | “Questa debole messianische Kraft” : On utopias and the messianic in the work of Luigi Nono
Hendrik Rungelrath (Universität des Saarlandes)
3:00 PM | “A Space to Think”: Neoclassic, Utopia, and a Musical Poetics of Repair
Mauro Bertola (CURE)
4:00 PM | Time, Scale, Agency: Remaking Utopia for a New World Order
Jennifer Allen (Yale University)
