Join us on Saturday, April 25th for Discourse, Dialogue, and Democracy II: An Online Symposium. As the title indicates, this is a continuation of the in-person Discourse, Democracy, and Dialogue Symposium held in conjunction with the 2025 Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture in New York City.
Our online symposium is free and open to members and non-members alike, but registration is required. The symposium will be held via Zoom, with the information for signing on to be distributed to registrants in advance of the event.
For more information and to register: https://generalsemantics.org/event-6471290
Discourse, Dialogue, and Democracy II An Online Symposium April 25th, 2026
Schedule (All times listed are Eastern Daylight Savings Time):
Greetings and Welcomings 8:45 AM to 9 AM
Lance Strate, Fordham University, USA
Session I New Semantic Environments 9:00 AM to 10:15 AM
Chair: Eva Berger, College of Management Academic Studies, Israel
“From Screen Celebrity to Social Media Influencer: The Future of Celebrities as Social Media Influencers as AI Challenges Their Roles in Contemporary and Commercial Media Environments in 2026”
Renee Peterson, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia
“Movement, Vision and Feedback in AI Robotics”
Chris Chesher, University of Sydney, Australia
“Time-Binding Democratic Sensibilities Through Literature: Exploring the Potential of Parrhesia, Dissent/Resistance and Creatical Interventions”
Bini Babu Sudha, Nirma University, India
“Reading of Discourse as Semantic Reactions: A Working Paper”
Pratiksha N. Chavada, Shri M. P. Shah Arts & Science College, India
Session II Words in Thought & Action 10:30 AM to 11:45 AM
Chair: Dom Heffer, Institute of General Semantics, United Kingdom
“The Never Ending Question: Converting the Being-Question into the Event-Question”
Mauro Ventola, Center for Ontological Transformation, Italy
“Discourse, Dialogue, Deliberation and Defending Democracy”
Olek Netzer, Independent Scholar, Israel
“The Dialect as a Cognitive Map: (Re)interpreting ‘Home’ through the Lens of ‘Thinking in Language’”
Oleksandr Bohomolets-Barash, National Academy of Sciences, Ukraine
«Semiotic Tensions and Perspectives in Intermediality»
Eleni Timplalexi, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
Session III People in Quandaries 12:00 Noon to 1:15 PM
Chair: Susan Drucker, Hofstra University
“AI, Deepfakes and Democracy: Symbols, Environments, Modes”
Olena Marina, Munster Technological University, Ireland, and
Igor Korolyov, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine
“Rethinking Minority Language Acquisition in the Digital Age”
Grace Foley, Trinity University, Ireland
“Linking Condillac’s Abstractions to Korzybski’s Structural Differential”
Robert T. Ackland, State University of New York College at Plattsburgh, USA
“The Dawn of a New Order: Rebirth Through the ‘Impossible’”
Pedro Gil González, Universidad Panamericana, Mexico
Session IV Language in Human Affairs 1:30 PM to 2:45 PM
Chair: Corey Anton, Grand Valley State University, USA
“Teaching General Semantics Through Make-Believe”
Martin H. Levinson, Institute of General Semantics, USA
“On the Necessity of an Ethics of Speech: Cultivating Dialogue in Philosophy Classes in Times of Discursive Violence”
Marcelo Capello Martins, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio, Brazil
General Semantics, Rhetoric, and Education: Possibilities for a Democratic Counter-Environment
Ryan P. McCullough, West Liberty University, USA
“When Discourse Is Generated: Artificial Intelligence as the Silent Architect of Public Discourse”
Laura Trujillo Liñán, Universidad Panamericana, Mexico
Session V The Map is Not the Territory 3:00 PM to 4:15 PM
Chair: Peggy Cassidy, Adelphi University, USA
“Margaret Mee’s Moon Flower: Map, Instant and Territory”
Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto, Pontifical Catholic University of São Paul, Brazil
“Maps, Manifestations, and #MagicResistance: Occult Symbolism for Political Action”
Christina M. Knopf, State University of New York College at Cortland, USA
“Margins of Interpretation: Towards an Analogical Model of Hermeneutics”
Elsa G. Sánchez Huerta Villalba, Universidad Panamericana, Mexico
“Living an Environmental Catastrophe in a Supposed Democracy: Semantics, Dialectics, Soil and Water”
W. Thomas Duncanson, Green Citizen Diplomacy Project, USA
Session VI Mind and Nature 4:30 PM to 5:45 PM
Chair: Thom Gencarelli, Manhattan University, USA
“From Agency to Semantic Responsibility: General Semantics, Communication Ethics, and the Moral Imperative of Meaning in the Age of AI”
Tiffany Petricini, Pennsylvania State University, Erie, USA
“How Digital Maps Still Aren’t the Territory”
Jaqueline McLeod Rogers, University of Winnipeg, Canada
“A New Language of History”
Jessie Lydia Henshaw, Independent Scholar, USA
“What Only Persons Can Give: AI, Moral Hollowing, and the Recovery of Dialogue”
Laura Meneses Trujillo, Universidad Panamericana, Mexico
Concluding Remarks 5:45 PM to 6:00 PM
Lance Strate, Fordham University, USA
Blog de Octavio Islas 