︎ Open Seminars 2026
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You can register for all the Open Seminars 2026 free on this link
18th of June - 26th of June
Alberto Toscano
18th of June 2026 | 18.30 CET/12.30 EST
(Direct link for registration here)
Title:
Relations of Destruction: War, Capital, and Fascism
in French Philosophy after 1968
Short description:
From the late 1960s to the 1980s, French
philosophy, responding to turbulence in the world-system and radical mutations
in political formations and ideologies, undertook a wide-ranging
problematization of three interlocking phenomena – warmaking, accumulation and
the politics of domination. This course will return to texts by Deleuze and
Guattari, Foucault, Virilio and others to reconstruct these conceptual
developments and test their capacity to illuminate the present.
Kamil Aftyka
22nd of June 2026 | 18.30 CET/12.30 EST
(Direct link for registration here)
Title:
Spirit Is Head? Immortality
Pursuits in Late Capital-ism and the Problem of Voice
Short description:
In this seminar we will treat head as a
metaphor operating in the current economic system as well as a limit-object of
techno-optimist, scientific pursuits of immortality. We will be moving between
three points in time. (1) 1925, when Werner Sombart popularized the idea we
live in “late capitalism” and Sergei Brukhonenko reportedly demonstrated he
could keep dog’s head alive for almost two hours. (2) 1807, when phrenology
symbolized to Hegel the peak of the scientist reduction of selfhood. (3) Today,
when—as I will argue—the imagined self is reduced not just to skull, not even
to brain, but to head, which is manifest in cryonics and the practice of the
digital immortality movements. In the reflection on the place of head in
economic and techno-scientific imagination we will seek significance of the
physical and cultural fact that the cut in the neck created by decapitation
most immediately destroys the faculty that produces voice.
Filippo Scafi
24th of June 2026 | 18.30 CET/12.30 EST
(Direct link for registration here)
Title:
Second-order epistemology: Luhmann, Pyrrho, Laruelle
Short description:
First-order epistemology applies a criterion to decide
whether a claim is correct. Second-order epistemology takes the criterion
itself as its object and observes the act of determination from outside its
performance. Pyrrho, Laruelle, and Luhmann each occupy this second position,
and reading them together exposes a constraint they share: the warrant for any
determinative act cannot be supplied from within the domain that act
determines. This constraint will
be traced through three forms of the second-order turn: Pyrrhonist suspension
of the criterion, Luhmann's observation of observation, and Laruelle's
suspension of philosophy's claim to sufficiency.
Maure Coise
26th of June 2026 | 18.30 CET/12.30 EST
(Direct link for registration here)
Title:
Epistolary Epistemologies: Writing Love Letters
Short description:
Writing the phrases “I believe that I love you” and
“I desire that I love you” differently renders love intelligible. These phrases
can begin the act of writing two different letters. Both refer to actions
situated by writers, readers, or even fictional characters. Carmella, in
Leonora Carrington’s The Hearing Trumpet (1974), sends
fabulating letters to people she has never met, signed with various pseudonyms.
To endorse positions or views on motives socialized by stories, lovers judge
actions. In this workshop, we will write love letters using multiple names and
send them to people we know and people we don’t know. Beliefs and desires
elicit replies through more or less convincing descriptions. A third letter
might begin with the phrase “I do not know that I love you.” A fourth could
begin by sharing more and more ambiguity. In Roberto Bolaño’s The
Savage Detectives (1998), Laura describes visceral realism as a love
letter—the infrareal invites reflection on the impacts of not refusing
rejection. Motives, observably and accordingly sourced in authorizing judgment,
cross multiple stories. Held in suspension, together we will write love poems,
send some, and not send some.
︎ Open Seminars 2026
![]()
You can register for all the Open Seminars 2026 free on this link
18th of June - 26th of June
Alberto Toscano
18th of June 2026 | 18.30 CET/12.30 EST
(Direct link for registration here)
Title: Relations of Destruction: War, Capital, and Fascism in French Philosophy after 1968
Short description: From the late 1960s to the 1980s, French philosophy, responding to turbulence in the world-system and radical mutations in political formations and ideologies, undertook a wide-ranging problematization of three interlocking phenomena – warmaking, accumulation and the politics of domination. This course will return to texts by Deleuze and Guattari, Foucault, Virilio and others to reconstruct these conceptual developments and test their capacity to illuminate the present.
Kamil Aftyka
22nd of June 2026 | 18.30 CET/12.30 EST
(Direct link for registration here)
Title: Spirit Is Head? Immortality Pursuits in Late Capital-ism and the Problem of Voice
Short description: In this seminar we will treat head as a metaphor operating in the current economic system as well as a limit-object of techno-optimist, scientific pursuits of immortality. We will be moving between three points in time. (1) 1925, when Werner Sombart popularized the idea we live in “late capitalism” and Sergei Brukhonenko reportedly demonstrated he could keep dog’s head alive for almost two hours. (2) 1807, when phrenology symbolized to Hegel the peak of the scientist reduction of selfhood. (3) Today, when—as I will argue—the imagined self is reduced not just to skull, not even to brain, but to head, which is manifest in cryonics and the practice of the digital immortality movements. In the reflection on the place of head in economic and techno-scientific imagination we will seek significance of the physical and cultural fact that the cut in the neck created by decapitation most immediately destroys the faculty that produces voice.
Filippo Scafi
24th of June 2026 | 18.30 CET/12.30 EST
(Direct link for registration here)
Title: Second-order epistemology: Luhmann, Pyrrho, Laruelle
Short description: First-order epistemology applies a criterion to decide whether a claim is correct. Second-order epistemology takes the criterion itself as its object and observes the act of determination from outside its performance. Pyrrho, Laruelle, and Luhmann each occupy this second position, and reading them together exposes a constraint they share: the warrant for any determinative act cannot be supplied from within the domain that act determines. This constraint will be traced through three forms of the second-order turn: Pyrrhonist suspension of the criterion, Luhmann's observation of observation, and Laruelle's suspension of philosophy's claim to sufficiency.
Maure Coise
26th of June 2026 | 18.30 CET/12.30 EST
(Direct link for registration here)
Title: Epistolary Epistemologies: Writing Love Letters
Short description: Writing the phrases “I believe that I love you” and “I desire that I love you” differently renders love intelligible. These phrases can begin the act of writing two different letters. Both refer to actions situated by writers, readers, or even fictional characters. Carmella, in Leonora Carrington’s The Hearing Trumpet (1974), sends fabulating letters to people she has never met, signed with various pseudonyms. To endorse positions or views on motives socialized by stories, lovers judge actions. In this workshop, we will write love letters using multiple names and send them to people we know and people we don’t know. Beliefs and desires elicit replies through more or less convincing descriptions. A third letter might begin with the phrase “I do not know that I love you.” A fourth could begin by sharing more and more ambiguity. In Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives (1998), Laura describes visceral realism as a love letter—the infrareal invites reflection on the impacts of not refusing rejection. Motives, observably and accordingly sourced in authorizing judgment, cross multiple stories. Held in suspension, together we will write love poems, send some, and not send some.
You can register for all the Open Seminars 2026 free on this link
18th of June - 26th of June
Alberto Toscano
18th of June 2026 | 18.30 CET/12.30 EST
(Direct link for registration here)
Title: Relations of Destruction: War, Capital, and Fascism in French Philosophy after 1968
Short description: From the late 1960s to the 1980s, French philosophy, responding to turbulence in the world-system and radical mutations in political formations and ideologies, undertook a wide-ranging problematization of three interlocking phenomena – warmaking, accumulation and the politics of domination. This course will return to texts by Deleuze and Guattari, Foucault, Virilio and others to reconstruct these conceptual developments and test their capacity to illuminate the present.
Kamil Aftyka
22nd of June 2026 | 18.30 CET/12.30 EST
(Direct link for registration here)
Title: Spirit Is Head? Immortality Pursuits in Late Capital-ism and the Problem of Voice
Short description: In this seminar we will treat head as a metaphor operating in the current economic system as well as a limit-object of techno-optimist, scientific pursuits of immortality. We will be moving between three points in time. (1) 1925, when Werner Sombart popularized the idea we live in “late capitalism” and Sergei Brukhonenko reportedly demonstrated he could keep dog’s head alive for almost two hours. (2) 1807, when phrenology symbolized to Hegel the peak of the scientist reduction of selfhood. (3) Today, when—as I will argue—the imagined self is reduced not just to skull, not even to brain, but to head, which is manifest in cryonics and the practice of the digital immortality movements. In the reflection on the place of head in economic and techno-scientific imagination we will seek significance of the physical and cultural fact that the cut in the neck created by decapitation most immediately destroys the faculty that produces voice.
Filippo Scafi
24th of June 2026 | 18.30 CET/12.30 EST
(Direct link for registration here)
Title: Second-order epistemology: Luhmann, Pyrrho, Laruelle
Short description: First-order epistemology applies a criterion to decide whether a claim is correct. Second-order epistemology takes the criterion itself as its object and observes the act of determination from outside its performance. Pyrrho, Laruelle, and Luhmann each occupy this second position, and reading them together exposes a constraint they share: the warrant for any determinative act cannot be supplied from within the domain that act determines. This constraint will be traced through three forms of the second-order turn: Pyrrhonist suspension of the criterion, Luhmann's observation of observation, and Laruelle's suspension of philosophy's claim to sufficiency.
Maure Coise
26th of June 2026 | 18.30 CET/12.30 EST
(Direct link for registration here)
Title: Epistolary Epistemologies: Writing Love Letters
Short description: Writing the phrases “I believe that I love you” and “I desire that I love you” differently renders love intelligible. These phrases can begin the act of writing two different letters. Both refer to actions situated by writers, readers, or even fictional characters. Carmella, in Leonora Carrington’s The Hearing Trumpet (1974), sends fabulating letters to people she has never met, signed with various pseudonyms. To endorse positions or views on motives socialized by stories, lovers judge actions. In this workshop, we will write love letters using multiple names and send them to people we know and people we don’t know. Beliefs and desires elicit replies through more or less convincing descriptions. A third letter might begin with the phrase “I do not know that I love you.” A fourth could begin by sharing more and more ambiguity. In Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives (1998), Laura describes visceral realism as a love letter—the infrareal invites reflection on the impacts of not refusing rejection. Motives, observably and accordingly sourced in authorizing judgment, cross multiple stories. Held in suspension, together we will write love poems, send some, and not send some.