Call for Papers: French Association for Semiotics (AFS) – Determination, Indetermination: Semiotics between Predictability and Unpredictability
Dear colleagues
The French Association for Semiotics (AFS) is pleased to share the call for papers for its upcoming congress:
Determination, Indetermination: Semiotics between Predictability and Unpredictability
Université Paris Cité, Site 45, rue des Saints-Pères, 75006 Paris,
June 17–20, 2025
After dedicating its two most recent editions (2022 and 2024) to the crucial issues of ecological transition and the problematics of life, the French Association for Semiotics proposes, for its next congress, to broaden these questions by examining the notions of determination and indetermination. These two categories—both conceptual and operational—run through all practices of meaning-making. From phrasal grammar (the determiner) to philosophical and ideological positions (determinism), they allow us to think the relationship between what is predictable and what emerges unpredictably, between the calculable and the evental, between the regularity of forms and the surprise of meaning
The congress website is now open for the submission of paper proposals: https://congresafs2026.sciencesconf.org/
Proposals may be submitted:
– within one of the thematic panels (the chosen panel must be explicitly indicated; see the list below),
– or independently of any panel.
Important dates:
– March 17, 2026: Deadline for submission of proposals
– April 17, 2026: Notification of acceptance decisions
– May 17, 2026: Publication of the program and deadline for congress registration
Paper proposals must include a title, an abstract of 2,000 to 3,000 characters, and a brief indicative bibliography.
Thematic panels:
– Fate, Theory of Grace, Habitus… Determination and Determinism: Diachronic Readings
– Determination and Indetermination of the Semiotic Function in Historical, Material, and Strategic Transformations
– Determination and Indetermination of the Living
– Articulating Uncertainty: Ecological and Political Indeterminacy and Possible Futures
– Identities at Stake: Regimes of (In)Determination in Digital Worlds and Practices
– Indetermination and the Latency of Meaning: Chance and Control in Sensory and Artistic Experiences
– The Hybridity of Genres Between Determination and Indetermination
– Hyper-Determination and Its Collateral Effects
– Indetermination in the Field of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
– Symbolic Logic as a Metasemiotic System: From the Determination of Meaning to Its Translation
– Negotiating the Unpredictable: Strategies, Tactics, and Horizons of Meaning
– Indetermination, Unpredictability, and the Neutral in Contemporary Television Serial Forms
– New Redeterminations: Corpus Synthesis and the Singularity of Works
– The Black Box as a Sandbox: Semiotics and Artificial Intelligence Between Indeterminacy and Predictability
A detailed description of each panel (scientific rationale, research axes, and participation guidelines) is available on the congress website.
Languages of the congress: French and English.
You will find the full conference theme and call for papers here (French/English)
Congres-de-lAssociation-Francaise-de-Semiotique