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Upcoming summer school

2025 LONDON CRITICAL THEORY SUMMER SCHOOL

The 2025 London Critical Theory Summer School will take place from 23 June to 4 July. It will once again run on Birkbeck's campus in central London.

We are delighted to confirm that a truly exceptional list of tutors has agreed to take part in the 2025 programme. Attendees will be offered a substantial programme of debates, breakout groups, discussions, live and pre-recorded talks, as well as access to archival resources.

Each Summer School explores the genealogy and reach of critical theory, whilst encouraging intellectual elaboration and reflection. Our aim is to stimulate progressive, dissident being and thinking.

The necessity for such thinking is as critical as ever today. Across the world reactionary and racist governments enshrine inhumane policies in law and turn their eyes away from climate catastrophe and infrastructural damage caused by military action. Over the past years, some right populist politicians have been defeated, others have been elected (Italy, Finland), or are aiming at a second chance in power. By the time we meet, we will have a clearer sense of what to expect from the re-election of Donald Trump as US president, how his policies will impact on climate disaster, what his interventions will be overseas, in Ukraine and Palestine-Israel where Israel is granted worldwide immunity in response to its assault on Gaza and Lebanon, and in the US, where he threatens mass deportation on an unprecedented scale, and has announced the banning of trans subjects from the military as a priority from day one. How appropriate or accurate is it to describe these developments in terms of a resurgence of fascism?

The world is faced with increased inequality, inhumane asylum policies, licensed ethno-nationalism, so-called 'culture wars’, and vicious misogyny, newly exposed but undefeated. We now exist on the other side of a global pandemic that introduced and extended myriad social and technological changes whose long-term effects still remain to be understood. At the same time, we are offered hope by the rise in protest movements, even when met with the increased force of the state, and we cherish the creativity of cultural and artistic production whose energies and commitment attempt to promise a better future. Our summer school offers a place to explore the ramifications of all this and to ask what it means to wield criticism against contemporary oppression while turning our thought towards freedom.

We invite students to immerse themselves in two weeks of discussion and debate in the company of our leading tutors. In 2025, we are delighted to welcome a number of scholars – confirmed so far are Jaco Barnard-Naudé, Eduardo Cadava and Sara Nadal-Melsió, alongside our returning speakers, Costas Douzinas, Stephen Frosh, Esther Leslie, Achille Mbembe, Sarah Nuttall, Laura Mulvey, Jacqueline Rose and Slavoj Žižek.

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS FOR 2025

  • Jaco Barnard-Naudé, Professor of Jurisprudence and Co-Director of the Centre for Rhetoric Studies in the Department of Private Law, University of Cape Town.
  • Eduardo Cadava, Philip Mayhew Professor of English, and an Associate Member of the Department of Comparative Literature, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, the School of Architecture, the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies, and the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies.
  • Costas Douzinas, Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Athens, Greece and Professor of Law at Birkbeck, University of London, a founder of the Birkbeck School of Law and the Department of Law of the University of Cyprus, the founding director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London, the President of the Nikos Poulantzas Institute and a former politician.
  • Stephen Frosh, Fellow of Birkbeck, University of London, Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, an Academic Associate of the British Psychoanalytical Society, a Founding Member of the Association of Psychosocial Studies, an Honorary Member of the Institute of Group Analysis, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa, and at the University of São Paulo, Brazil.
  • Achille Mbembe, professor at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER) at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, and at the new Innovation Foundation for Democracy - on Critique and Institutions.
  • Laura Mulvey, Professor of Film Studies at Birkbeck, University of London.
  • Esther Leslie, Professor of Political Aesthetics at Birkbeck, University of London and Fellow of the British Academy.
  • Sara Nadal-Melsió, Associate Director of the Whitney Independent Study Program.
  • Sarah Nuttall, Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies, University of Witwatersrand.
  • Jacqueline Rose, Professor of Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
  • Slavoj Žižek, International Director of Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, visiting professor at New York University and a senior researcher at the University of Ljubljana's Department of Philosophy.

SPEAKERS AND TOPICS IN 2024

  • Costas Douzinas - ‘States of Exception’
  • Stephen Frosh - ‘On Academic Freedom, Provisional Whiteness and Antisemitism’
  • Oscar Guardiola-Rivera and Kojo Koram - ‘A Poetics and Philosophy of the Nonhuman’
  • Juliet Jacques - ‘Writing Trans History’
  • Isaac Julien - ‘The new Modes of Imaginary’
  • Esther Leslie - ‘Blush and Flame: On Colour Giving Light and its Aesthetics’
  • Achille Mbembe - ‘On Critique and Institutions’
  • Laura Mulvey - ‘Layering Cinematic Time: A feminist perspective’
  • Fumi Okiji - ‘Òrò and ornament. Or Benjamin meets black study behind a curtain’
  • Jacqueline Rose - ‘Gaza: How to think?'
  • Slavoj Žižek - ‘Why is the European Legacy worth fighting for’

The application process for the 2025 Summer School (in-person programme) is now open and the deadline for applying is 10 January 2025.

2025 LCTSS VIRTUAL stream

WHAT IS THE LCTSS VIRTUAL stream? 

The 2025 LCTSS virtual stream is intended as an educational experience for those of you not sure whether you are ready for the full in person course, if you have concerns about travel or are on a reduced budget.

WHAT TO EXPECT

The virtual stream comprises at least two hours of delivery in each day of the Summer School, where you can attend remotely the live-streamed lecture of each speaker teaching at the in-person programme, in addition to five moderated break out sessions, where you can take time to work and discuss around the taught subjects with your peers. While we are not able to offer dedicated 1-2-1 exchange of exclusive dialogues with each lecturer, your questions (collected through the chat function) at the Q&A following each lecture will be prioritised.

The 2025 LCTSS virtual stream will also include allocated time for optional social interactions as well as preferential access to the two weekly public facing sessions of the full Summer School, each of these planned on a Friday.

The application process for the 2025 LCTSS virtual stream is now open and the deadline for applying is 10 January 2025.