CFP for Navigationen. Zeitschrift für Medien- und Kulturwissenschaften 2/26
06.07.2025
CFP for Navigationen. Zeitschrift für Medien- und Kulturwissenschaften 2/26
»Technofascism«
What is technofascism, and how can it be conceptually clarified?
Glancing at current headlines, it is palpably clear that the utopian tech visions of the 1990s have morphed into something darker. Once celebrated as a democratizing force, digital technology is increasingly implicated in authoritarian and reactionary ideologies. Today, everyone, from scholars and critics to popular writers, recognizes a stark shift toward authoritarian, elitist, and reactionary worldviews among influential tech figures and communities. Tracing the technofascist networks is no longer seen as conspiracy thinking. They are out in the open, there is no need to decipher it.
From Neoreaction to Technofeudalism, from Longtermism to Techno-Authoritarianism and the Tech-Oligarchy, labels for these newly emergent and overlapping formations proliferate. But what exactly constitutes technofascism? The term evokes classical fascism’s anti-democratic, hierarchical, and authoritarian traits. Yet contemporary tech-centric manifestations remix traditional nationalist symbolism with libertarian rhetoric, scientific rationalism, and promises of technological efficiency and future-oriented “altruism.”
Technology, it seems, is the enabling condition of a new form of fascism. Recent scholarship on classical fascist movements highlights recurring “mobilising passions”: discourses of civilizational crisis, glorifications of entrepreneurial will and youthful vigour, contempt for pluralism and legal restraint. When these passions encounter predictive algorithms, platform monopolies and venture-capital futurism, they are organised and amplified in novel ways. We therefore invite contributions that examine whether, and how, the analytical lens of “technofacism” helps us grasp today’s reactionary formations; trace new modes of mobilisation, governance and exclusion; and propose conceptual vocabularies.
Possible questions
- How does today’s technofascism differ from classical fascism or other contemporary right-wing movements?
- What is “techno” about Technofascism? What technophilosophical approaches can be identified to specifically characterize this phenomenon?
- What are current examples of techno-fascist endeavors and theories?
- What are the theoretical points of reference for techno-fascist thinking?
- Is there an appropriation of classic left-wing texts and approaches?
Submission details
We welcome proposals for contributions (500-word abstract, 200-word author bio, and two key references) that shed light on the topic of technofascism from various interdisciplinary perspectives. Deadline Proposal: 15.07.25. Accepted Papers: 28.02.2026.
Please send proposals to Laura Hille: laura.hille@leuphana.de, Felix Hüttemann: fhuettema@uni-bonn.de, and Milan Stürmer: sturmer@esphil.eur.nl