Since 2019, the HEPP conferences have provided a space to explore themes related to populist mobilisation, polarisation, and the dynamics of emotional engagement in various political and mediatised contexts. Our thematic core remains the same this year, and the HEPP6 conference will also include a special focus on grievance politics and democratic governance, the main topic of the PLEDGE Horizon project.
The first HEPP conference was held in 2019 in connection with the now defunct Helsinki Summer School, where eventual HEPP members both taught and participated in courses on discourse analysis and populism. While this event was mainly geared at early career scholars, our conferences have since grown continuously and now provide a space for hundreds of academics at all career stages to gather on a regular basis. HEPP2 was held entirely online in 2021, and since HEPP3 in 2022, all of our conferences have been completely hybrid. We are very proud to keep our conferences accessible to scholars from around the globe who would otherwise not be able to fund their travel to Helsinki.
We hope to see you at HEPP6 and at our future events!