︎ The Summer Institute

︎ Call for Applications for the 2026 Summer School “ Realism, Materialism, Epistemology: What is Living and What is Dead in Contemporary Thought? ” 

"Realism, Materialism, Epistemology: What is Living and What is Dead in Contemporary Thought?," is the title of a summer school, part of the SMR Summer Institute in Stagira/Olympiada (Greece), scheduled for August 17–23, 2026. It will explore the 21st century provocations and challenges to the dominance of the poststructuralist epistem across the humanities, social sciences, political philosophy, and beyond. This event invites us to delve into the motivations or epistemic necessities inspiring movements like speculative realism (SR), non-philosophy or non-standard philosophy, new materialisms (Utrecht school, Barad, vibrant matter), Lacanian realism, kinetic materialism, xenofeminism and/or accelerationism, and most recently cosmotechnics as an epistemological shift. We do not intend to study any of these strands of thought as subject matter of the school but state them as a non-exhaustive list of what we consider to be symptoms of the crisis of the poststructuralist (maybe even postmodern?) epistemic hegemony. Many have since moved away from either SR, non-philosophy or non-standard philosophy or from feminist materialisms, but their links with sciences have become even stronger. Even without embracing an ontology of materialism, the link with the sciences via the interrogations of material reality seems to ensure some connection with the interrogations of the real or in terms of the real, or even physicality as opposed to the spectral selfufficency of the universe of language, signification, Sign. Present currents engage with hard sciences and technology and some with Marxism or both with STEM and Marxism, challenging the hegemony of poststructuralism’s authority without fully displacing it. What unites these shifts, and how do we name this evolving paradigm which emerges perhaps even before the so-called "speculative turn" and the rest that followed? Confirmed speakers: Rocco Gangle, John Ó Maoilearca, Thomas Nail, Cecile Malaspina, Joel White, Yuk Hui (pending reconfirmation) and Jason Andrey Bonilla (guest lecturer).

CLICK here for the Call for Applications and Practical Details including Aplication Form

︎ Call for Applications for the 2026 Summer School “The Political and its Limits” at the SMR Campus in Greece

SMR Summer School “The Political and its Limits” will take place from 26th to 31st of July 2026. In Olympiada/Stagira, Greece at the SMR Summer Campus (hybrid: offering online version of the entire event)

As every summer, at its small campus by the Aegean Sea in Stagira (now Olympiada), Aristotle’s birthplace, we will gather for another week of σχολή to speak of “the political and its limits, or and its others.” Our summer schools are always structured as σχολή which allows enough time to have both a holiday in Greece but also participate in engaging lively conversations as well as hear established keynote speeches but also the presentations of the participants (which are often no less exciting than the keynote speeches). The of the SMR Summer School “The Political and its Limits” will take place from 26th to 31st of July 2026 (excluding arrivals/departures). Confirmed speakers to deliver master classes: Alenka Zupančič, Gil Anidjar and Amanda Beech, and a keynote address from Haela Hunt-Hendrix as a guest speaker.

CLICK here for the Call for Applications and Practical Details including Aplication Form

︎ Call for Applications for the Summer School PHYSIS 2025  at the SMR Campus in Greece
with Dorion Sagan, John Ó Maoilearca, Thomas Nail, Katarina Kolozova, Joel White and Claire Sagan offering masterclasses and keynotes and more (panelists yet to announced). 

PHYSIS in Stagira/Olympiada, Greece (wider area of Thessaloniki, municipality Aristotelis in Olympiada), 24-30 August 2025 with Dorion Sagan, John Ó Maoilearca, Thomas Nail, Katarina Kolozova, Joel White and  Claire Sagan offering masterclasses and keynotes and more ( panelists yet to be announced).

CLICK here for the Call for Applications and Practical Details including Aplication Form

︎ Summer Institute for Advanced Design Practices:  Nature/Artifice Reimagined

August 3 to August 10, 2025 in Olympiada/Stagira (Greece)

We are proud to announce our Summer Institute for Advanced Design Practices collaboration with several universities taking place from August 3 to August 10, 2025 in Olympiada/Stagira (Greece): Nature/Artifice Reimagined.

Co-organizers are: Goldsmiths University, Politecnico di Milano, Sandberg Institute (NL) and, of course, the founding institution of SMR, Arizona State University-CPT.

Deadline for applications: April 1st, 2025.

The application form

Please find the brochure containing all the relevant information.

︎ Death, Movement, Change and Transformation: The Domain of Matter with John Ó Maoilearca, Thomas Nail and Joel White,
and Jonathan Fardy as invited lecturer

The application form is available in the link below containing the full program and the relevant practical info. Please, be informed that the selection process is based on a single key criterion: your motivation (”Please indicate what is your interest in the summer school program”), backed up by your academic profile (”short bio”) to be stated in the form itself. The call for applications is open until February 27, 2024. The results of the selection process will be available 15 days after the closing of the Call.

CLICK here for Full Program and Practical Details including Aplication Form

︎ The Feminine in an Age of Anthropological Transformation

The application form is available in the link below containing the full program and the relevant practical info. Please, be informed that the selection process is based on a single key criterion: your motivation (”Please indicate what is your interest in the summer school program”), backed up by your academic profile (”short bio”) to be stated in the form itself. The call for applications is open until December 31, 2023. The results of the selection process will be available 15 days after the closing of the Call.

 



CLICK here for Full Program and Practical Details including Aplication Form

︎ Mytho Planetarities: Critical and Speculative Practices in Design Research

The School of Materialist Research is excited to announce a 2024 summer school on design and creative research in Olympiada, Greece: Mytho Planetarities: Critical and Speculative Practices in Design Research.

Dates: Aug 3-9, 2024

The summer school is geared toward graduate students (Master’s and Doctoral) and early career researchers wanting to expand their creative and critical research on questions related to design, mythology, and planetarity. The school is taught by internationally renowned design and arts faculty from Goldsmiths University of London (UK), Politecnico di Milano (Italy), University of New South Wales (Australia), and Arizona State University (USA).

The program fee covers lodging and tuition. Applications are due May 3. Apply here.


Instructions for submitting 1000 euro to secure your place in the summer school will be sent upon receipt of application. Payments are due by July 1.

Olympiada is beach town, easily accessible from Thessaloniki (approximately 1 hour), the second largest city in Greece. Details about transportation and accommodation will be sent out in early summer.