Humanity faces various crises on many fronts, what has been termed a ‘polycrisis’. First coined by French theorists Edgar Morin and Anne-Brigitte Kern in the 1990s and later popularised in 2016 by Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, a polycrisis describes a situation in which multiple challenges coalesce into a complex web of interconnected crises, creating impacts greater than any single crisis alone. These include, among others, the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI), democratic backsliding, declining trust in political institutions, demographic changes and population ageing, and climate change.

Often, we feel helpless in the face of challenges like these, while those with decision-making power discuss and make decisions and solutions for us. Agency, defined as the capacity, power, and freedom to make independent choices, form intentional goals, and take actions that shape one's own life and environment, is increasingly constrained by the social, political, economic, and technological systems in which we live. Although we can not directly control these systems, humans can still exercise some influence in the communities, societies, and contexts they live in.

What agency remains to us as educators, artists, professionals, and individuals? How can we contribute to meaningful change? The Forum session at BCE/BAMC2026 invites participants to reflect on the possibilities of human agency in times of polycrisis.

Biographies

Donald E. Hall

Donald E. Hall is Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at Binghamton University (SUNY), United States. He was formerly Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering at the University of Rochester, United States, and held a previous position as Dean of Arts and Sciences at Lehigh University, United States. Provost Hall has published widely in the fields of British Studies, Gender Theory, Cultural Studies, and Professional Studies. Over the course of his career, he served as Jackson Distinguished Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English (and previously Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages) at West Virginia University. Before that, he was Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English at California State University, Northridge, where he taught for 13 years. He is a recipient of the University Distinguished Teaching Award at CSUN, was a visiting professor at the National University of Rwanda, was Lansdowne Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the University of Victoria (Canada), was Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Cultural Studies at Karl Franzens University in Graz, Austria, and was Fulbright Specialist at the University of Helsinki. He has also taught in Sweden, Romania, Hungary, and China. He served on numerous panels and committees for the Modern Language Association (MLA), including the Task Force on Evaluating Scholarship for Tenure and Promotion, and the Convention Program Committee. In 2012, he served as national President of the Association of Departments of English. From 2013-2017, he served on the Executive Council of the MLA.

His current and forthcoming work examines issues such as professional responsibility and academic community-building, the dialogics of social change and activist intellectualism, and the Victorian (and our continuing) interest in the deployment of instrumental agency over our social, vocational, and sexual selves. Among his many books and editions are the influential faculty development guides, The Academic Self and The Academic Community, both published by Ohio State University Press. Subjectivity and Reading Sexualities: Hermeneutic Theory and the Future of Queer Studies were both published by Routledge Press. Most recently he and Annamarie Jagose, of the University of Auckland, co-edited a volume titled The Routledge Queer Studies Reader. Though he is a full-time administrator, he continues to lecture worldwide on the value of a liberal arts education and the need for nurturing global competencies in students and interdisciplinary dialogue in and beyond the classroom.

Professor Donald E. Hall is a member of IAFOR’s International Academic Board.

Melina Neophytou

Dr Melina Neophytou is the Academic Operations Manager at IAFOR, where she works closely with academics, keynote speakers, and IAFOR partners to shape academic discussions within The Forum, bring conference programmes together, refine scholarship programmes, and build an interdisciplinary and international community. She is leading various projects within IAFOR, notably The Forum discussions and the authoring of Conference Reports and Intelligence Briefings, and she oversees the Global Fellows Programme.

Born in Germany and raised in Cyprus, Dr Neophytou received her PhD in International Development from Nagoya University, Japan, in 2023, specialising in political sociology, the welfare state, and contentious politics. She received an MA in International Development from Nagoya University, with a focus on Governance & Law, and a BA in European Studies from the University of Cyprus, Cyprus.

Dr Neophytou’s research interests currently focus on how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing the relationship between state and society. Her current work examines technologies such as facial recognition (FRT) and biometric surveillance, and how these tools impact freedom of expression, protest, and social policy

About the Presenter(s)
Donald E. Hall is Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at Binghamton University (SUNY), United States.
Dr Melina Neophytou is the Academic Operations Manager at IAFOR.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Friday Schedule

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