Timour Kamran, PhD

As a member of conference organizing committee for the Society for Peace, Internationalism, and Ecology, I am excited to announce this call for abstracts for SPINE 2026!

We are pleased to announce a call for abstracts for the second annual conference of the Society for Peace, Internationalism, and Ecology (SPINE). SPINE is an international and interdisciplinary platform for scholars, activists, and artists to share rigorous work devoted to promoting international peace, equality, and environmental sustainability.

A decade’s worth of events seem to happen every week. The mask of democratic rights and international law has been lifted, revealing the horrific face of global imperialism in the form of a live-streamed genocide, massive displacements of large sectors of the global population, the abduction of immigrants or suspected immigrants by far-right paramilitary groups, the murder of protestors live on camera by federal agents, a return to the rhetoric of manifest destiny and Monroe Doctrine, the attacks upon the sovereignty of nations seeking self-determination, the rise of far-right political parties that openly identify themselves with the legacy of fascism, and the boiling away of natural resources to fuel the fires of profitable new technologies and industries. 

Is this intensification of imperialism and fascism the harbinger of even greater horror, or should we interpret these circumstances as the last-ditch-effort of an empire in decay? How should we theorize the role of new global alliances and the rise of a multipolar world in relation to the intensification of global imperialism? What can the history of liberation struggles teach us about fighting back against imperialism and fascism? What can we learn from the continuing experiments in ecological sustainability, socialism, and economic sovereignty about the possibility of a better world? What strategies and tactics should we use to fight back? 

We seek submissions covering contemporary social themes such as:

• Imperialism and colonialism
• Migration and mass displacement
• National liberation 
• Ecological socialism
• Fighting the rise of fascism
• Anti-imperialist artistic and cultural production
• Multipolarity
• Socialist experiments, past and present 
• Any other theme related to peace, internationalism, and ecological sustainability

SPINE brings together work that is rigorous, transdisciplinary, and rooted in a materialist and dialectical understanding of social reality and practice. Our aim is to foster an interdisciplinary space dedicated to the struggle for peace, international solidarity, and ecological sustainability.

We are looking for 200-500 word abstracts for 20-minute presentations. We invite submissions from academics, activists, artists, organizers, and independent scholars. 

We are also accepting 200-500 word proposals for organizing workshops, artistic projects, or roundtable discussions by artists, authors, and organizers.

We are accepting one submission per participant.