[MaFLA] LIFE at its Limits: Medicine, Literature, Philosophy

[Laczkó Sándor]

Call for Papers
LIFE at its Limits: Medicine, Literature, Philosophy
Department of English Studies, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, 
Hungary
10–12 December 2026

The conference aims to explore the limits and crossings between the 
incommensurable discourses of and on life and its limits in medicine, 
literature, and philosophy from the Romantic Age to the present. How has 
“life” been conceptualised, narrated, diagnosed, measured, 
aestheticised, politicised, and its notion contested across these 
domains? What happens when biological, philosophical, and literary 
understandings of life intersect — or fail to translate into one 
another?
 From Enlightenment vitalism and Romantic theories of organism and 
imagination to modern biopolitics, epidemiology, and posthuman thought, 
the concept of life has remained both foundational and unstable. Medical 
science has sought to define and preserve life, philosophy has 
interrogated its meaning and limits, and literature has explored its 
experiential, ethical, and narrative dimensions. Yet these discourses 
often remain partially incompatible, revealing tensions between 
scientific description, philosophical reflection, and narrative 
representation.
We invite contributions that explore the limits and crossings between 
medical, literary, and philosophical discourses of life. We are 
particularly interested in historically grounded as well as 
theoretically informed approaches.  Possible topics include (but are not 
limited to):
•	Life, death, and narration
•	Philosophy and the limits of life
•	Romantic medicine, science, and literature
•	Psychiatry, subjectivity, and the medicalization of life
•	Biopolitics and the politics of health
•	Race, medicine, empire, and the politics of life
•	Indigenous medicine and concepts of life
•	Epidemiology, disease, and narrative
•	Illness, diagnosis, and representation
•	Healing, recovery, and the limits of cure
•	Disability and the production of norms
•	Ethics of care, ageing, survival, and vulnerability
•	Artificial life, technology, longevity, and medicine

Confirmed keynote speakers:

Prof. Hanna Meretoja, University of Turku
Prof. Neil Vickers, King’s College London
Dr. Arthur Rose, University of Exeter
Dr. Eszter Ureczky, University of Debrecen

The conference will take place at the Department of English, Eötvös 
Loránd University, in Budapest, Hungary. There is no registration fee;  
however, participants are responsible for their own travel and 
accommodation expenses.

We welcome submissions from scholars from various fields, including, but 
not limited to literature, philosophy, and cultural studies.
Abstract proposals of 250-300 words should be sent to life at btk.elte.hu, 
accompanied by a 100-word bionote. The deadline for abstract submission 
is 4 September 2026.

Conveners:
Dr. Andrea Timár, Dr. Iván Nyusztay, Dr. Kata Gyuris
Paula Goddard, Boróka Andl-Beck, Nóra Kele, Dóra Sápi