April 24, 2026 | Friday | 6:30 p.m.

City Stage

(underground level)   

 

Discussion:

The New Humanity:

Origins, Uses, and Future

 

With the participation of:

Vladimir Poleganov, Stoyan Stavru, Todor P. Todorov

Moderator:

Alexander Popov

 

Contemporary literature acknowledges the full scale of today’s complex and multifaceted crises, but at the same time takes very seriously the ethical imperative to resist these catastrophic scenarios and build a world in which the future will be bearable and even inspiring of hope for as many beings as possible, whether human or not, writes Dr. Alexander Popov.

 

Alexander Popov conducts research in the fields of ecocriticism, literary theory, posthumanism, and artificial intelligence, and teaches courses at Sofia University in the areas of linguistics, science fiction, utopia, digital humanities, and narratology. He is also the chief consultant for this year’s edition of the festival. He has been entrusted with the role of moderator for the festival’s keynote discussion, “The New Humanity: Origins, Uses, and Future,” with the participation of the writer and translator Vladimir Poleganov, the lawyer and philosopher Stoyan Stavru, and the writer and philosopher Todor P. Todorov.

In the discussion, the four will explore whether the reason for today’s rapidly changing world lies in the parallel invention of a new human being. Or, rather, in this era of globalization, planetary integration, and artificial intelligence, are the constructions of the world and the human being inextricably linked? The very concept of the humanity is often associated with the constant changeability of the human being, with their incredible plasticity. What does this portend for the future, which today seems as if it is already among us, only unevenly distributed (according to William Gibson)—an eternally impending future at many speeds? No less important is the question of the origin of contemporary dominant conceptions of humanity, which lead us into ever-new crises—climatic, psychological, sociopolitical, military. Do our fundamental problems not, in fact, stem from specific worldviews and dimensions of the human condition forged during the eras of the Great Geographical Discoveries and the Enlightenment? During the discussion, we will draw on insights from literature, philosophy, history, and translation to explore the human condition through its transformations related to technology, ethics, law, science, colonization, and our relationship with nature.

 

More about the panelists:

Alexander Popov is a researcher in the fields of computational linguistics and artificial intelligence. He conducts research in the fields of ecocriticism, literary theory, and posthumanism, and teaches courses at Sofia University in the areas of linguistics, science fiction, utopia, digital humanities, and narratology. He publishes academic articles related to the genres of fantasy. He is an author and editor for ShadowDance magazine and the editor of the “Cyberpunk” issue. He firmly believes that we need new models for understanding humanity and its role in a present marked by crises, and he seeks these models precisely in science fiction and its many manifestations.

*
Vladimir Poleganov is a Bulgarian writer, screenwriter, and translator from English. He graduated with degrees in clinical psychology and creative writing from Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski.” He teaches creative writing in the “Digital Media and Video Games” master’s program at the Faculty of Media and Journalism and Mass Communication — together with Alexander Popov and Emanuil Tomov — teaches a course on “Science Fiction” in the English Philology program at the Faculty of Classical and Modern Philology at Sofia University. Since 2020, he has been part of the teaching staff at the Between the Lines summer school for creative writing for high school students at the University of Iowa, USA. He is the author of a short story collection, Dekonstrukciata na Tomas S. /The Deconstruction of Thomas S./, and the novel Drugiat sun /The Other Dream/. He is part of the editorial team of the critical anthology “The Voices of Bulgarian Diabolism” and an editor for the online magazines “Free Poetic Society” and “Gathering of Troubadours.” His short stories have been published in numerous Bulgarian and English-language magazines and anthologies. The story Kladenetsut /The Well/ won second prize in the Rashko Sugarev National Short Story Contest, and “Drugiat sun /The Other Dream/ won the Helikon Award. Ptitsite /The Birds/ is included in the anthology Best European Fiction by Dalkey Archive Press. In 2020, he received the Award for Outstanding Achievement from the Union of Translators in Bulgaria for his translation of the novel “Lincoln in the Bardo” by George Saunders. His work as a screenwriter includes the series “Undercover”, the shows “Denis and Friends” and “The Nikolaos Tsitiridis Show”, and others.

*
Stoyan Stavru is a lawyer and philosopher. His primary research interests lie in the fields of bioethics and biolaw, the ethics of the body, neurolaw, and the cognitive sciences. He is a lecturer in medical and biolaw. He is the author of numerous scholarly studies, articles, and books, including The Human Body as an Object of Property Rights (Sibi, Sofia, 2008); Bio-law: Visions in Pandora’s Box, Book One and Book Two (Feneya, Sofia, 2013); Law in New Territories. Legal and Ethical Challenges in the Era of Hyper-Technology. Conversations with Irina Nedeva (Nova Zvezda, Sofia, 2016); The Human Body Between Embodiment and Convention. Contemporary Perspectives (Ciela, Sofia, 2016); Legal Incapacity of Natural Persons. Contemporary Challenges (Nova Zvezda, Sofia, 2016), and others. Since 2010, she has been the founder and editor-in-chief of the professional website Challenge the Law! (Challengingthelaw.com). Since 2019, he has been the representative of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences on the Supervisory Council under the Law on Persons with Disabilities. He actively works to build public and scientific awareness of the issues of bioethics and the ethical and legal regulations concerning the human body.

*
Todor P. Todorov (born 1977 in Sofia) is a Bulgarian philosopher and writer. He is the author of two short story collections and one novel: Prikazki za melanholichni deca /Tales for Melancholic Children/ (2010), Vinagi noshtta /Always Night/ (2012), and Hagabula (2022). His novel Hagabula received the National Literary Award for Bulgarian Novel of the Year in 2023, as well as a Special Mention in the European Union Prize for Literature in 2024. In 2011, he won the Rashko Sugarev Award for best short story for Van Gogh in Paris. In 2015, Todor P. Todorov gave a lecture at the event A Night of Philosophy in New York, organized by the French Embassy and the Ukrainian Institute in America. In 2025, he was a guest author at the Long Night of Literatures literary festival in Kolkata and Delhi, India, where he represented the European Union. He teaches Philosophy of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and Mythologies of the Future at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski,” where he is an associate professor and holds a Ph.D. in philosophy.