Call for Speakers: 2025 Dawson Humanities & Public Life Conference

The Dawson College Humanities & Public Life conference is an annual event that introduces CEGEP students to the ambiance, culture, and discovery of academic conferences. We provide a bridge between great ideas, new research, and exciting debates, as well as showcasing how the questions we tackle in the humanities are relevant to concrete, real-world situations. We invite presentations from all disciplines. This year, the conference will take place from October 20 to October 24, 2025, and the theme will be Hope and Despair: How and Why We Map out the Future.

We would like to encourage a vast array of contributors. We’d like to invite those in literature to talk about science fiction and fantasy. Those within the sciences can address climate change, species at risk, and attempts to mitigate climate change. Political theorists can contribute ideas about theories of history, change and development. Philosophers, linguists and psychologists can contribute ideas about the mind and critical thinking. How do people map out the future using the tools that they have? How does our notion of time change according to language or culture?  How are conspiracy theories put together and how do they gain traction?

Does rational choice theory still have currency? Have economists correctly grasped the human economic decision-making process? Why have we miscalculated the actions and reactions of electorates or certain global leaders?  How will AI influence how we map out the future?

Economists and political theorists could talk about the future in very concrete terms: The future of health care, the future of the Canadian economy, the job market and the future of post-secondary education. Whether it be liberals with their idea of the ‘End of History’ or Marxists with their idea of revolution, political visions encompass a vision of ‘Good Life’ or an ideal future.

Religions have their own visions of the future. We’d like to invite members of different faiths to discuss how they see time and the future. It is particularly relevant now, as some once obscure voices now have more access to political power.

We’d also like to invite speakers who can address how we deal with the future. The strong trend over the last 20 years towards meditation, yoga and mindfulness points to a huge market in anxiety relief. We’d like to host sessions that help students navigate our new epoch of disruption.

This will be the first academic conference that many of our students have attended. Conference talks should be tailored accordingly, aiming to capture the hearts and minds of a college-aged audience. To this end, we encourage flexibility and innovation in form: anything from the traditional conference talk to an interactive activity or performance.

Format: A traditional talk or presentation should be around 35-45 minutes long. They will be followed by approximately 15 minutes of questions. If you have any doubts about the level of your presentation, please consult us.  Panels are welcome. Other formats could be interactive talks or performances.