Conference 2026: "Humanity"

The Humanities Center at Texas Tech Annual Conference 2026:
“Humanity: Agency, Equality, Pleasure, Violence, Death”

Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas
April 25, 2026

Keynote Speaker:

Graham Harman
Distinguished Professor of Philosophy
Southern California Institute of Architecture

The Humanities Center at Texas Tech University (Lubbock, Texas) announces its call for papers for our Annual Conference in the Humanities, to be held in Lubbock on April 25, 2026. The conference topic each year aligns with the Center's annual theme, which for 2025-2026 is “Humanity.”

We are interested in papers that engage scholarly conversations about categorical definitions of “humanity,” or “the human,” or any of the theme’s subcategories (“agency,” “equality,” “pleasure,” “violence,” and death”) across any of the following disciplines: art, literature, rhetoric, communication, history, film and media, music, philosophy, law, digital humanities, museum and/or archival studies, ethnic studies, women’s and gender studies, design, and education. This list, in keeping with the Humanities Center’s expansive mission, is open-ended. The Center's vision of the humanities is a broad one and we encourage presentations and panels that rethink disciplinary boundaries and traditional academic research.

We welcome abstracts for individual papers as well as proposals for fully formed panels. Potential speakers should send an abstract of 300 words and a brief CV (no more than 2 pages). Scholars proposing a panel should provide an abstract of no more than 500 words and include a list of contributors (with the titles of their papers) as well as brief CVs (no more than 2 pages) for each. 

Abstracts and panel proposals should be submitted to humanitiescenter@ttu.edu by January 9, 2026 with all documents contained in a single PDF. In the subject line of your submission, please use the format "TTUHumanitiesConference/YOUR NAME/YOUR PROPOSAL or ABSTRACT TITLE" (e.g., TTUHumanitiesConference/Smith/HumanityAsMetaphor) as the subject line in your email.