Paul Verhoeven (b. 1938) has left an indelible mark on popular culture. His films marry a European arthouse sensibility with the US blockbuster but in a wickedly satirical way. But this does not mean his films are not open to criticism.

His American dystopic trilogy – RoboCop (1987), Total Recall (1990) and Starship Troopers (1997) – provided dark visions of futuristic metropoles that continues to resonate to this day, touching on capitalism, robotics, biopolitics, posthumanism, urban planning, artificial intelligence, transhumanism and climate change, while female-led dramas, such as Basic Instinct (1992), Showgirls (1995), Black Book (2006), Elle (2016) and Benedetta (2021), remain controversial for their overt eroticism, sexual violence and representation of lesbianism.

To critically explore the origins and legacies of Verhoeven’s body of work, this conference proposes to bring together scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds to explore Paul Verhoeven’s output, debate its legacy and consider its position within visual culture including specialists from fields as diverse as literary and cinematographic studies; the history of art, design, fashion and architecture; musicology; philosophy; political sciences; computer science and robotics; urban and ecological studies; and feminist, queer and sexuality studies.