Prof. Margaret Archer will be remembered for her remarkable contributions to realist social theory. Most students of critical realism will have heard of the morphogenetic approach (1995), about her realist defense of sociological humanism (2000) and about her trilogy on social reflexivity (2003-13). Fewer, however, might know about Archer's accomplishments within the Centre for Social Ontology which she founded in 2010.

In his keynote, Dr. Ismael Al-moudi will discuss two exciting and ambitious projects that were completed within the CSO over the last decade or so. Between 2010 and 2017, the "Morphogenic Society" project sought to describe, explain and evaluate Late Modern societies where social change seems to generate ever more change (Archer Ed. 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017). Between 2017 and 2022, the members of the CSO completed another project known both as the "Post-human Society" project and as the "Future of the Human" book series. This project sought to re-describe, re-explain and re-evaluate what we mean by a "human" and by a "person" in the face of post-human technologies that extend, blur and displace essential human features (Al-Amoudi & Morgan 2019, Al-Amoudi & Lazega 2019; Carrigan & Porpora 2021; Archer & Maccarini 2021).
Since Prof. Archer acted both as the Centre's founder and as one of its most active researchers, this keynote will address both the general findings reached by the group of researchers and Archer's individual contribution to each of the projects.