INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE APOCALYPSE NOW? TECHNOLOGY AND EXISTENTIAL THREATS

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

APOCALYPSE NOW? TECHNOLOGY AND EXISTENTIAL THREATS

7th MARCH 2025

IGNATIANUM UNIVERSITY IN CRACOW

PROGRAMME

Site: Conference Hall of the Faculty of Philosophy – Media Center (Centrum Medialne), Kopernika 26

9.30 Introduction Bart van Klink, Vrije University Leon van den Broeke, University of Utrecht Marta Soniewicka, UJ Anna Bugajska, UIK

10.00-11.00 Keynote lecture Moderator: Marta Soniewicka William Franke, Medieval Origins of the Question Concerning Technology and its Contemporary Apocalypses

11.00-11.15 Coffee - Centrum Medialne

11.15-12.15 Session I Moderator: Leon van den Broeke Steven C. van den Heuvel, Evangelical Theological Faculty Leuven & Theological University Utrecht, Technology and the Climate Emergency: Beyond the Bifurcation, and Towards an Ethics of Responsibility Bart van Klink, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Spiritual Exercises in the Posthumous Condition: Preparing Law Students for the Apocalypse Marta Soniewicka, UJ, Apocalyptic Rhetoric in Politics and Law and the Heuristics of Fear

12.30-14.00 Lunch – Pinsaria 22, Kopernika 22

14.00-15.20 Session II Moderator: Bart van Klink Leon van den Broeke, University of Utrecht, Vita Contemplativa: Apocalypse, Technology, and the End of Manufacturability Jacek Poznański, UIK, Will science and technology help guide and enhance biological evolution?

David Levente Palatinus, University of Trnava, Imaginaries of Planetary Futures: The Expanse and Democracy-to-Come Anna Bugajska, UIK, Castles in the Cloud: the New Civilization of the Digital Selves

15.20-15.40 Coffee - Centrum Medialne

15.40-16.00 Final discussion and the closing of the meeting