On 9–12 November 2026, the Faculty of Philology at Vilnius University will host the DN34 International Conference on Discourse, Identity and Polarisation. The international hybrid conference will bring together scholars working across Critical Discourse Studies and related fields to examine how individual and collective identities are constructed, contested and transformed in increasingly polarised societies. The conference will open with two pre-conference workshops on 9 November:
• Eleonora Esposito will lead a workshop on applying for MSCA and ERC Starting Grants and the discursive construction of “excellence” in European research funding.
• Orlagh Woods and Silvia Peterssen will conduct a second workshop on bringing Critical Discourse Analysis and literary critique together in research on polarisation and identity.
The main conference programme on 10–12 November will feature four keynote lectures:
• Veronika Koller, Polarisation as metaphor, polarisation and metaphor;
• Jan Zienkowski, Discourse and the construction of illiberal orders of (mis)recognition;
• Ruth Breeze, Identity, community and polarisation in online forums;
• Augusto Soares da Silva, National identity, polarisation and socio-culturally situated construal operations: The case of far-right populism in Brazil and Portugal.
Across three parallel hybrid tracks, conference participants will explore such topics as media andideological polarisation, populism, digital publics, national belonging, othering, collective agency, conflict, humour, stigma, authority and collective identity construction. The programme includes onsite and online presentations by scholars representing a wide range of countries, institutions, disciplines and methodological perspectives.
The conference is organised in collaboration with DiscourseNet and as part of the DARE postdoctoral research project. It aims to create an inclusive interdisciplinary forum for examining the role of discourse in producing social divisions and enabling solidarity, resistance and social change. The conference will take place in a hybrid format. Microsoft Teams links for the workshops, keynote lectures, and parallel sessions are included in the final programme.
• Conference programme.
We warmly invite the university community and everyone interested in discourse, identity, media, politics and polarisation to join us onsite or online.
