Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC) Sponsored Workshop on Precarity and Human Life: Reflections of Artificial Intelligence in Literature and Popular Culture 2.0
Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC) Sponsored Workshop on
Precarity and Human Life: Reflections of Artificial Intelligence in Literature and Popular Culture 2.0
Date: 15th-19th December 2025
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Patna
Concept Note
In the age of the Anthropocene, artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer just a technological tool but an entity capable of reshaping ecological, social, and cultural realities. As AI enhances both possibilities and vulnerabilities, it augments the precarities of human life in unforeseen ways. Literature and popular culture provide dynamic landscapes where these anxieties, hopes, and contradictions are narrated, contested, and reimagined. They allow us to question: what forms of humanity, agency, and survival are possible in a world increasingly mediated by precarious conditions or intelligent machines?
The workshop takes as its starting point the ways cultural narratives, ranging from novels to cinema, speculative fiction to digital storytelling, interrogate AI’s entanglement with human precarity. The discussion also intends to extend beyond the cultural field, such that questions of language, governance, economics, and policy are taken into consideration to understand how old and new forms of precarity unfold and are represented. By staging dialogues across disciplines, the workshop aims to unpack the layered and intersecting dimensions of precarity in the age of the Anthropocene. It understands that literary and popular imaginaries both mirror and critique the crises shaping our present, thus opening space for new ways of thinking about human life, survival, and dignity in times of technological disruption.
While digital humanities offer imperative tools to map how AI impacts and engages with cultural and social life, the more urgent task at hand is to ask how its use can be ethically imagined. Large language models, for instance, are yet to be trained with attentiveness to histories of gender, class, caste, and race; thus, risk reproducing the very exclusions they claim to transcend. Fiction and cultural narratives, in this sense, are a counter-site: they foster curiosity toward what resists being standardised and remind us that irregularities—of bodies, voices, and worlds—are not errors but legible sources of meaning. To remain human in an AI-driven age is to insist on engaging these eccentricities, refusing flattening logics, and recognising that our survival depends on preserving the uneven textures of society even when they bear the signs of a precarious life. This workshop, therefore, seeks to engage these interdisciplinary perspectives to question how rapid technological change unsettles the very terms of human life and precarity.
Call for Participation
We invite students, faculty, and researchers interested in these significant discussions to register at the following link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScLG6GI8VV0iWd2Xp2USppJkTkRZmu99xsLp570Ly_17KBFsw/viewform?usp=header
The five-day workshop will be structured to promote active engagement between participants and resource persons. The schedule (to be uploaded in early December) will include the following activities:
- Lectures by invited speakers
- Article writing workshops (with the goal of completing a first draft by the end of the program)
- Panel discussions on key thematic concerns
- Film screenings and discussions related to the workshop theme
- Evaluation sessions to review participants’ progress and provide feedback
Last date for registration: October 31st, 2025
Participation fee: Rs. 5000/-
Payment link:https://www.onlinesbi.sbi/sbicollect/icollecthome.htmcorpID=1968961
Mode: Offline
All participants shall receive certificates of participation.
Candidates are responsible for arranging their own travel and accommodation. A list of hotels and lodging options near IIT Patna is provided in the registration form. A limited number of rooms at the IIT Patna Guest House are available for registered participants on a first-come, first-served basis. Bookings can be made by emailing pic_guest@iitp.ac.in.
For further queries, please contact:
Dr. Priyanka Tripathi: +91 9155147495
priyankatripathiiitp@gmail.com
Bhagya Shree Nadamala: +91 7674834191
Sikha Mohanty: +91 7504170746
About IIT Patna
Indian Institute of Technology, Patna, is one of the new IITs established by an Act of the Indian Parliament on August 06, 2008. The campus is approximately 40 km from the central city of Patna. Known for its vibrant academic environment, IIT Patna is committed to excellence in research, fostering cutting-edge innovations and advancements across various disciplines such as science, technology, and humanities.