The University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszów, in cooperation with Sapienza University of Rome, invites you to participate in the international academic conference Truth in Crisis: Literary and Linguistic Representations of Post-Truth Phenomena, which will take place on June 26–27, 2025, in the Senate Room of UITM (ul. Sucharskiego 2, Rzeszów, Poland).
The conference will bring together scholars from over a dozen academic institutions in Poland, Italy, Germany, Slovakia, India, the United States, and the United Kingdom, representing diverse disciplines including literary studies, media studies, linguistics, philosophy, communication, and law. Together, participants will reflect on the contemporary crisis of truth in the context of a rapidly evolving media and technological landscape.
The event will open with two keynote lectures by distinguished scholars specializing in disinformation, literary narratives, and artificial intelligence. The first keynote, titled Digital Virulence Driven by AI: Small and Big Stories, will be delivered on June 26 at 9:15 a.m. by Prof. Peter Mikuláš (Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra). He will analyze the mechanisms of virality and visual manipulation in digital media, with particular attention to AI-generated content. On the following day, June 27 at 9:00 a.m., Prof. Paolo Simonetti (Sapienza University of Rome) will present a lecture titled From Melville to AI: Reading US Literature in the Age of Post-Truth, offering insights into the role of American literature in diagnosing epistemological tensions and cognitive crises in a world increasingly shaped by AI technologies.
Across six thematic panels, the conference will explore topics such as AI-generated narratives and the crisis of authenticity, hate speech and irony in digital media, manipulation in e-commerce and political discourse, education of migrants and refugees, ethics of ecological storytelling, and the function of literature and art in the post-truth era. The event will conclude with an open roundtable discussion titled What Is Truth Today?, focusing on contemporary definitions and the socio-cultural significance of truth.
This interdisciplinary gathering will provide an exceptional opportunity to exchange ideas, foster academic dialogue, and build international collaborations.
The full conference program and book of abstracts are available at: https://truth-in-crisis-gck1xus.gamma.site.
Registration is now open — we warmly invite you to sign up via the online form!
The language of the conference is English.
