Technocracy
The Technocracy conference, organized by the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, takes place Thursday, March 5 and Friday, March 6, 2026 at the Levis Faculty Center. All are welcome.
As the technocratic class extends its grip over governance, biopolitics and militarization have become central mechanisms for shaping the future. Grounded in critical theory, this conference draws from biopolitical critique and science and technology studies to interrogate the ideological underpinnings of technocracy and its consequences for democracy, sovereignty, and the possibility of alternative futures.
Thursday, March 5 — Levis 422, 3:00–6:30 PM
A panel of graduate student papers featuring Soumya Dasgupta (Architecture, UIUC), Taisuke L. Wakabayashi (Landscape Architecture, UIUC), Chris Wiley (Information Science, UIUC), and Theodore Dreyfus Ledford (Information Science, UIUC).
Friday, March 6 — Levis 300, 9:00 AM–6:30 PM (breakfast at 8:30 AM)
Invited speakers include Michelle N. Huang (English, Northwestern), Brian Jordan Jefferson (Geography, UIUC), Jeffrey S. Nesbit (Architecture, Temple University), Anita Chan (Information Science, UIUC), Swati Srivastava (Political Science, Purdue), Isak Ladegaard (Sociology, University of Hong Kong), and Brett Zehner (Communication, University of Exeter).
Keynote — 5:30 PM Friday
Fred Turner, Harry and Norman Chandler Professor of Communication at Stanford University, will deliver the keynote lecture, “The Texan Ideology.” Turner is the author of From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism (2006) and The Democratic Surround: Multimedia and American Liberalism from World War II to the Psychedelic Sixties (2013), among other books. A reception follows on the Levis ground floor.
Conference Co-Chairs: D. Fairchild Ruggles and Taisuke L. Wakabayashi.
More information: criticism.illinois.edu