Heroism in Literatures, Cultures and Collective memory and Its Modern-Day Heroism Interpretations

Call for Papers deadline: 29 May 2026

Conference date: 2-25 October 2026

Host Organization: AzCLA, DAAD-Azerbaijan, Khazar University, Azerbaijan, ADA University, Azerbaijan

Venue: Baku-(Naples or Vercelli in 2027)

Conference Theme

This conference invites scholars, researchers, and cultural critics to examine the concept of heroism as it has evolved from ancient myths to contemporary social narratives, particularly in the context of its visible and invisible influence on modern consciousness. From school and university curricula to wartime propaganda, the heroic ideal has been implanted into collective memory, shaping moral expectations, political behaviors, and individual identity. We invite to explore the evolution of heroism from ancient myths, sagas, dastans, and epics to medieval and modern narratives, focusing particularly on how these heroic models are presented in textbooks and how they shape moral values, with an emphasis on the construction of heroism concept as an ideal of virtue, strength, and sacrifice.

We seek to interrogate how mythical heroes like Heracles, Siegfried, Köroğlu, and Robin Hood have informed cultural perceptions of right and wrong, justice and violence, and how such heroic tropes have been reappropriated in modern ideological projects, from Leninist collectivization to nationalist discourses and modern wars, including the defense of own country or country of the ancestors (from which period of your ancestors?) and claims over "historical lands."

The conference explores heroism through the prism not only of military or nationalist, but also epistemic and ethical;  how heroism operates in science, neurobiology, medicine; engineering; economics, and security studies. In these fields, heroism is rarely mythopoetic; rather, it emerges through epistemic risk, technical responsibility, and high-stakes decision-making. The figure of the scientist, for example, may embody epistemic courage,as in the case of Marie Curie, whose research entailed personal risk, or Rosalind Franklin, whose intellectual perseverance challenges traditional recognition structures. In public health, heroism acquires a biopolitical dimension, as seen in figures like Li Wenliang , where moral responsibility intersects with institutional power.

Main panels may include (but are not limited to): 

• Ethical Models of Heroism: From Caucasian Folklore to Global Media
• Rethinking the Hero: Cultural Ethics in Robin Hood and other heroic epics
• Tradition, Ambiguity, and Modern Mythmaking: The Ethics of Heroism
• Constructing the Heo: Moral Codes in Folklore and Contemporary Culture
• Epistemic Heroism: Courage, Risk, and Scientific Responsibility
• Heroism as risk-taking for knowledge (e.g., early researchers experimenting on themselves)
• Who Is a Hero Today? Ethical Perspectives from Epic to Global Media
• Neurobiological mechanism of Heroism
• Technical Responsibility and Decision-Making
• Constructing the Hero: Neurobiology, Collective Memory, and Patriotism
• Hero and Antihero: Changing Parameters and Between Admiration and Rebellion
• From Hero to Perpetrator: The Zimbardo’s Lucifer Effect and the Psychology of Moral Collapse

   Accordingly, topics might be: 

• From Myth to Nation: Heroic Figures in Ancient Epics and Modern Textbooks
• Heroism in Antiquity: Gods, Demigods, and Mortal Struggles
• Heroism and Patriotism; Individual Glory (kleos) and Imperial Framework
• Education and Teaching Heroism in Schools, Universities and Educational Platforms
• From Epic Valor to Education and Modern Consciousness
• Heroic Masculinity and Gendered Expectations
• Shaping Moral Ideals through Male Heroism
• Female Heroism and Changing Female Ideal (as amazons)
• Marie Curie — scientific heroism through discovery despite personal risk
• The Hero, Loyalty and the Mythologization of Violence (as Heracles and Hippolyta,  Aeneas and Turnus narratives)
• Heroism and alternative models
• Heroism as an Ethical Principle: Sacrifice and Motivation
• Love as Motivation: Heroism Beyond the Battlefield (e.g., Farhad for Shirin)
• Heroism, Patriotism and Collective memory: Constructing National Identity through the Hero
• Existentialism and the Collapse of Heroism (Sartre, Camus, Remark, Vasil Bikov, Isa Huseinov, Svetlana Aleksiyevich, post-war literature)
• Heroism as Moral Action
• Existential Crises of the Hero in Modern Literature (existentialism, deconstructivism)
• Neurobiological Foundations of heroism and cultural memory
• The neuroscience of heroism: neural, hormonal, and physiological bases of courageous acts
• The Afterlife of the Hero: Monuments, Memory, and Martyrdom
• From Mythic Theft to Revolutionary Redistribution as Lenin’s Collectivization: The Politics of Taking in Heroic Narratives
• Transformations of the heroic ideal
• Heroism in Contemporary War: Ukraine, Russia, and Competing Historical Claims
• Digital Heroes: Social Media, Gaming, and the New Frontier of Heroic Narratives

Panel Proposals:

We welcome panel proposals (3–4 speakers) (but are not limited to) under the mentioned themes.

Comment soumettre des propositions

Submission Guidelines:

• Abstracts for individual papers: around 200 words
• Panel proposals: Title + 200-word panel rationale + abstracts for each paper
• Brief bio: max 150 words per participant
• Abstracts are accepted in: English, Azerbaijani, German, and Italian (with submission of full paper text in English) 

Please submit an abstract of no more than 200 words along with a brief bio (up to 150 words) by 29 May, 2026, to [email protected]

Contact for futher information

[email protected]