[Air-L] Call for Submissions: Workshop on Internet Archetypes, 14.11.2025

[Laura Niebling]

Dear colleagues,

we are happy to announce our upcoming hybrid workshop on „Karens, Tradwives and MechaHitlers: Internet Archetypes as Indicators of A Transatlantic, Collective Unconscious“ on post-digital imaginaries and rhetorics at the University of Regensburg on Nov. 14th 2025. We cordially invite you to send in a proposal for a contribution (20 min. presentations or similar formats). 

The full CfP can be found here: https://www.uni-regensburg.de/fileadmin/user_upload/dimas/2025/aktuelles-news/CfP_Archetype.pdf

About the Workshop:
In the early days of the Web, Steven Stefik’s anthology Internet Dreams: Archetypes, Myths and Metaphors (MIT Press, 1996) offered a now almost forgotten, early reading of Internet imaginaries, anxieties and assorted rhetorics. Featuring Internet pioneers like J.C.R. Licklider, Robert (Bob) Kahn or Vinton G. Cerf alongside academics and – most notably – psychologists, the volume sought to examine then-popular metaphors surrounding the “information highway”. It was but one attempt to give a psychological framework to tech ideologies and transformations in the making (see also Schrezenmeier 2019, 217–239; Dick and McLaughlan 2020, 63–93; Bollmer 2023). To frame the use of metaphors, Stefik drew on the analytical psychology of Carl G. Jung and argued that metaphors, just like technologies in the making, were often embedded in unconscious yet identity-shaping imaginaries. Following Jung’s terminology, he sketched four “archetypes” of Internet functions: the Keeper of Knowledge, the Communicator, the Trader, and the Adventurer. Unlike the “information highway”, Stefik argued that these were the foundational metaphors to understand the Web through epistemic relationships and references of situated communal and cultural experiences: as a library, a virtual mailing system, a marketplace and a world to explore.
 
There is a particular hegemony of transatlantic discourses of the Western hemisphere when “Karens” (Hamad 2025, 22–37), “Crypto bros” (Smith 2022), “tradwives” (Rhodes 2024) and a variety of other Internet user types (Feldman 2019) are now invoked as archetypes and carried over into diverse areas of everyday life. The narrative potential of the Internet (Bassett 2007) as a rugged landscape of collective stories and experiences comes into critical relief through archetypes old and new, humorous and critical, radicalized and resistant. Researching them against critical theories of postcolonialism, gender and transcultural area studies can help us shed light on “the specific political and cultural constraints […] which give rise to idiosyncratic creative practices, curatorial creativity, and communal imaginaries” (Ensslin and Roy 2023, 153) and on how cultural meanings are shared, circulated, amplified, modified and erased by individuals and communities online.
 
In this workshop, generously funded by the Leibniz ScienceCampus “Europe and America in the Modern World”, we aim to revisit various archetypical iterations (e.g. in critically engaging with the role of Jungian archetypes) and definitions and seek to understand why and how archetypes have come to shape transatlantic post-digital landscapes across Europe and North America. We investigate transcultural flows in contemporary digital culture and examine (g)local formations of Internet memes as hybrid expressions of identity, power, and belonging. Contributions across disciplines are welcome to address the following (and/or other relevant) questions: 

The one-day hybrid workshop is hosted at the Department for Interdisciplinary and Multiscalar Area Studies (DIMAS) at the University of Regensburg by Prof. Dr. Astrid Ensslin and Dr. Laura Niebling on Nov 14th 2025. It will bring together perspectives from various transatlantic, European and North American academic communities. Using a case study approach, we will critically engage with the idea of the Web as a new “collective unconscious”, and revisit and question Jung’s and other, emergent archetype schemata in light of how they might reflect elements of contemporary post-digital imaginaries and transcultural flows within the imagined “Global North”. To participate, please send in a short abstract (300 words) and short CV (150 words) to laura.niebling at ur.de <mailto:laura.niebling at ur.de> before 30.09.2025.
 
The event is free of charge and light snacks and drinks will be provided. Researchers will have to cover their travel and accommodation costs. We can provide limited funding for researchers without travel expense support from their institutions. 

Best regards,
Laura Niebling

Dr. Laura Niebling
DIMAS
University of Regensburg
Bajuwarenstraße 4
93059 Regensburg
laura.niebling at ur.de <mailto:laura.niebling at ur.de>

***
Out now / Forthcoming:
Moving Image Memes (meson press, 2026, w. J Zündel, K. Pauliks & T. Heilmann)
Handbuch Digitale Medien und Methoden <https://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1007/978-3-658-36629-2> (Springer, 2025; w. F. Raczkowski & S. Stollfuß)
Escape from the Glass Prison <https://dspace-backend.ub.uni-siegen.de/server/api/core/bitstreams/a716236c-7b04-42f5-80e7-c0e3f11e2033/content> (Navigationen 25/1 2025, 117-127)