Calls for papers for conferences taking place in June 2027

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Combating harmful stereotyping: a cross-disciplinary approach.
Host and dates: Université Grenoble Alpes, France | 17-18 June 2027.
Deadline for submissions: 05.01.2027.

Event organised by

  • Laure Gardelle (Université de Grenoble Alpes) & 
  • Sandrine Sorlin (Université de Montpellier Paul-Valéry/IUF)

Event presentation

The full cfp can be accessed on the conference website (see below).

It is well established in research as well as in the social arena that a number of stereotypes are harmful, because they are “preconceived and oversimplified idea[s] of the characteristics which typify a person, situation, etc” (OED 2025, stereotype), and that they lead to biases in the perception of individuals, who are considered on the basis of their membership in a group rather than their individual qualities. Biases may be explicit (“overtly discriminatory beliefs, actions, or institutional policies”), but also implicit, taking the form of “unconscious tacit attitudes and unintentional actions towards a group” (Rutgers 2026) that are likely to be detrimental to the targeted group and life in a peaceful society. 

There are now countless initiatives and discussions on the web and on social networks urging to combat stereotypes, whether from international organisations such as UNESCO, the European Commission, or governments, charities, associations, the press, or initiatives in the workplace. In the 14-billion word iWeb corpus of contemporary English, the verb most frequently associated with “stereotypes” is “challenge” (Davies 2018, query “[any verb]+stereotypes”). The focus in the social arena has primarily been on gender, sexual orientation and race/ethnicity, and to a lesser degree, on disability, social class, profession (such as lawyers, nurses, cleaners, farmers), but harmful stereotypes may concern more generally any social group or human category (tourists, students, young people, neighbours, TV viewers, people who read books and so on), or human-related categories (football and more generally sports, dancing, sewing, etc) but they may also concern animals (for instance, perception of sharks as dangerous).

Yet despite these countless initiatives, research has shown how resistant harmful stereotypes can be, and how complex the issue is, relating as it does to contexts, social norms, communities of practice, self-esteem, group identity, language and discourse. A number of causes and solutions have been put forward in a number of fields and disciplines, but there is little dialogue between them. The aim of this conference is to bring together specialists of stereotypes and generalizations across disciplines, especially linguistics, cognitive linguistics, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, pragmatics, communication studies, philosophy of language, cognitive psychology, social psychology, organizational behaviour, political science, evolutionary psychology, sociology, anthropology.

Keynote speakers 

  • Catalin Brylla, Principal Lecturer in Film and TV, Bournemouth University
  • John Dovidio (to be confirmed), Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Public Health, Yale University
  • Adam Hahn, Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology, University of Bath
  • Samia Hesni, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Dartmouth College
  • Kai Sassenberg, Professor of Psychology at the University of Trier and Director of the Leibniz Institute for Psychology

Submissions

Abstracts of around 300 words (excluding references) should be addressed before 5 January 2027 to: 

Timeline

  • Deadline for submission: 5 January 2027
  • Notification of acceptance: 25 January 2027

Website address 

https://combatstereo.sciencesconf.org/?lang=en

Contact details

combatstereo@sciencesconf.org

(Posted 19 May 2026)