Kryzysy krytyki, krytyka kryzysów, krytyka krytyki. O języku konferencji naukowych w humanistyce i naukach społecznych w Polsce

In this article I examine how contemporary humanities and social sciences mobilize the language of crisis and critique in academic conference discourse. Drawing on an analysis of conference abstracts from selected Polish disciplinary congresses (sociology, cultural studies, media/film studies, and game studies), my study explores how “crisis” functions not merely as a descriptive category but as a discursive operator that legitimizes critical inquiry. I argue that crisis operates simultaneously as an epistemic frame, a rhetorical device and a mechanism for justifying the urgency and relevance of research. At the same time, critique itself becomes an object of reflection. Influenced by debates on post-critique and reflexivity, conference discourse reveals a shift from an interventionist model of critical agency toward a more reflexive one, in which disciplines interrogate not only social realities but also their own analytical tools, institutional conditions, and limitations. By situating crisis and critique within the institutional practice of conferencing, my study highlights how academic gatherings function as sites where disciplines negotiate their legitimacy, redefine their methodological commitments, and rearticulate the role of critical scholarship under conditions of epistemic and political uncertainty.