︎ Spring Open Seminars 2025
![]()
You can register for all the Spring Open Seminars 2025 free on this link
19th of March - 28th of March
Maja Kantar
19th of March 2025 | 18.00 CET/12.00 EST
(Direct link for registration here)
Title: Hope in Pluriverse: Materiality and Temporality of Utopia
Short description: It seems difficult to see the horizon of emancipatory politics in our present world of failing machines. Precisely because, in spite and against this bleak outlook, when the world gives us dystopia – we seek utopia, when the world gives us nothing – we reach for all. This seminar is about the notion of utopia framed within the philosophy of Ernst Bloch. I will concentrate on two important concepts in his work – hope and time – to propose an argument against the general misunderstanding of utopia. Rather than something impossible and abstract, utopia is material, historical and concrete. Rather than an end point of linear progression, utopia is processual and pluritemporal. At the heart of Blochian utopia there is an operating principle of hope, an expectant, anticipatory affect/labour looking to a genuine future, to what is not yet. This anticipation proper to forward-oriented dreaming arises in the face of “the darkness of the lived moment”, and is not simply a state of the self, but a conscious utopian function. To hope is to thrust towards the future, and full hope is one that ever shows the marks and traces of 'going beyond the limited'. Bloch’s hope is grounded in the very matter of the world as such, and there is an evident tendency in his work toward this ontologically grounded anticipation in which a genuine future is perpetually possible within the present. This process unfolds in a complex temporal structure - Bloch’s notion of Ungleichzeitigkeit, often translated as non-synchronicity or non-contemporaneity, involves an account of plural temporality. The hopeful tendencies of the world do not progress in a linear and necessary fashion but, instead, become stalled and spectral, defeated dreams of past phases of class struggle coming back to haunt the present. This multi-layered temporal understanding suggests a faltering historical movement in which hope confronts abysses. But the world is a process, and nothing is guaranteed or certain. Blochian ontology is defined by unfinishedness, such that the triumph of hope is figured as a distant and uncertain proposition, a fragile tendency that is registered in the fabric of the world but does not dominate or determine it. In conclusion, to approach the initial question of our own emancipatory horizon, I will give a Blochian reading of two literary texts written by Kim S. Robinson and Andrey Platonov
Alfie Bown
21st of March 2025 | 18.00 CET/12.00 EST
(Direct link for registration here)
Title: Capitalism, Psychosis and the Digital
Short description: This course explores a number of areas in which digital life intersects with desire, including dating apps, video games, conspiracy theory hubs, meme communities, blogging, podcasting and AI. It argues that in analysing the digital subject, we can see a pattern emerging - visible both on the left and the right, among the progressives and the reactionaries - that can be understood as psychotic, in the psychoanalytic sense of the word. The word Psychosis plays various roles socially, medically and analytically, but in its formal psychoanalytic function as the description of a psychic structure, it can help us to understand the effect of contemporary capitalism on its subjects, without falling into oppositional or identatarian thinking. The course hopes to begin the work of learning to live in, or even oppose, psychotic capitalism.
Ben Woodard
27th of March 2025 | 18.00 CET / 12.00 EST
(Direct link for registration here)
Title: On the abuse of genetics in the 21st Century
Short description: This open seminar will explore the relationship between genetics, criminology, and politics in the 21st century. In particular, it will examine how the popularization and simplification of genetics in the 21st century has fed into far-right ideology and the resurrection of eugenics.
Borna Radnik
28th of March 2025 | 18.00 CET / 12.00 EST
(Direct link for registration here)
Title: The Dialectic of Freedom, Necessity, and Time in Hegel
Short Description: While commentators and scholars accept that Hegel’s idea of freedom is a historical achievement, there is less consensus on the exact role of historicity and temporality in Hegel’s conception of self-determining freedom. Against the liberal readings of Hegel’s political philosophy that interpret him as a thinker of recognition, and against those that would dismiss him as a reactionary conservative, this course aims to reveal a more revolutionary and radical Hegel in the tradition of Hegelian Marxism. By showing how time, history, and necessity contextualize and determine Hegel’s idea of freedom, we will grasp the radical element of Hegel’s thought.
︎ Spring Open Seminars 2025
![]()
You can register for all the Spring Open Seminars 2025 free on this link
19th of March - 28th of March
Maja Kantar
19th of March 2025 | 18.00 CET/12.00 EST
(Direct link for registration here)
Title: Hope in Pluriverse: Materiality and Temporality of Utopia
Short description: It seems difficult to see the horizon of emancipatory politics in our present world of failing machines. Precisely because, in spite and against this bleak outlook, when the world gives us dystopia – we seek utopia, when the world gives us nothing – we reach for all. This seminar is about the notion of utopia framed within the philosophy of Ernst Bloch. I will concentrate on two important concepts in his work – hope and time – to propose an argument against the general misunderstanding of utopia. Rather than something impossible and abstract, utopia is material, historical and concrete. Rather than an end point of linear progression, utopia is processual and pluritemporal. At the heart of Blochian utopia there is an operating principle of hope, an expectant, anticipatory affect/labour looking to a genuine future, to what is not yet. This anticipation proper to forward-oriented dreaming arises in the face of “the darkness of the lived moment”, and is not simply a state of the self, but a conscious utopian function. To hope is to thrust towards the future, and full hope is one that ever shows the marks and traces of 'going beyond the limited'. Bloch’s hope is grounded in the very matter of the world as such, and there is an evident tendency in his work toward this ontologically grounded anticipation in which a genuine future is perpetually possible within the present. This process unfolds in a complex temporal structure - Bloch’s notion of Ungleichzeitigkeit, often translated as non-synchronicity or non-contemporaneity, involves an account of plural temporality. The hopeful tendencies of the world do not progress in a linear and necessary fashion but, instead, become stalled and spectral, defeated dreams of past phases of class struggle coming back to haunt the present. This multi-layered temporal understanding suggests a faltering historical movement in which hope confronts abysses. But the world is a process, and nothing is guaranteed or certain. Blochian ontology is defined by unfinishedness, such that the triumph of hope is figured as a distant and uncertain proposition, a fragile tendency that is registered in the fabric of the world but does not dominate or determine it. In conclusion, to approach the initial question of our own emancipatory horizon, I will give a Blochian reading of two literary texts written by Kim S. Robinson and Andrey Platonov
Alfie Bown
21st of March 2025 | 18.00 CET/12.00 EST
(Direct link for registration here)
Title: Capitalism, Psychosis and the Digital
Short description: This course explores a number of areas in which digital life intersects with desire, including dating apps, video games, conspiracy theory hubs, meme communities, blogging, podcasting and AI. It argues that in analysing the digital subject, we can see a pattern emerging - visible both on the left and the right, among the progressives and the reactionaries - that can be understood as psychotic, in the psychoanalytic sense of the word. The word Psychosis plays various roles socially, medically and analytically, but in its formal psychoanalytic function as the description of a psychic structure, it can help us to understand the effect of contemporary capitalism on its subjects, without falling into oppositional or identatarian thinking. The course hopes to begin the work of learning to live in, or even oppose, psychotic capitalism.
Ben Woodard
27th of March 2025 | 18.00 CET / 12.00 EST
(Direct link for registration here)
Title: On the abuse of genetics in the 21st Century
Short description: This open seminar will explore the relationship between genetics, criminology, and politics in the 21st century. In particular, it will examine how the popularization and simplification of genetics in the 21st century has fed into far-right ideology and the resurrection of eugenics.
Borna Radnik
28th of March 2025 | 18.00 CET / 12.00 EST
(Direct link for registration here)
Title: The Dialectic of Freedom, Necessity, and Time in Hegel
Short Description: While commentators and scholars accept that Hegel’s idea of freedom is a historical achievement, there is less consensus on the exact role of historicity and temporality in Hegel’s conception of self-determining freedom. Against the liberal readings of Hegel’s political philosophy that interpret him as a thinker of recognition, and against those that would dismiss him as a reactionary conservative, this course aims to reveal a more revolutionary and radical Hegel in the tradition of Hegelian Marxism. By showing how time, history, and necessity contextualize and determine Hegel’s idea of freedom, we will grasp the radical element of Hegel’s thought.
You can register for all the Spring Open Seminars 2025 free on this link
19th of March - 28th of March
Maja Kantar
19th of March 2025 | 18.00 CET/12.00 EST
(Direct link for registration here)
Title: Hope in Pluriverse: Materiality and Temporality of Utopia
Short description: It seems difficult to see the horizon of emancipatory politics in our present world of failing machines. Precisely because, in spite and against this bleak outlook, when the world gives us dystopia – we seek utopia, when the world gives us nothing – we reach for all. This seminar is about the notion of utopia framed within the philosophy of Ernst Bloch. I will concentrate on two important concepts in his work – hope and time – to propose an argument against the general misunderstanding of utopia. Rather than something impossible and abstract, utopia is material, historical and concrete. Rather than an end point of linear progression, utopia is processual and pluritemporal. At the heart of Blochian utopia there is an operating principle of hope, an expectant, anticipatory affect/labour looking to a genuine future, to what is not yet. This anticipation proper to forward-oriented dreaming arises in the face of “the darkness of the lived moment”, and is not simply a state of the self, but a conscious utopian function. To hope is to thrust towards the future, and full hope is one that ever shows the marks and traces of 'going beyond the limited'. Bloch’s hope is grounded in the very matter of the world as such, and there is an evident tendency in his work toward this ontologically grounded anticipation in which a genuine future is perpetually possible within the present. This process unfolds in a complex temporal structure - Bloch’s notion of Ungleichzeitigkeit, often translated as non-synchronicity or non-contemporaneity, involves an account of plural temporality. The hopeful tendencies of the world do not progress in a linear and necessary fashion but, instead, become stalled and spectral, defeated dreams of past phases of class struggle coming back to haunt the present. This multi-layered temporal understanding suggests a faltering historical movement in which hope confronts abysses. But the world is a process, and nothing is guaranteed or certain. Blochian ontology is defined by unfinishedness, such that the triumph of hope is figured as a distant and uncertain proposition, a fragile tendency that is registered in the fabric of the world but does not dominate or determine it. In conclusion, to approach the initial question of our own emancipatory horizon, I will give a Blochian reading of two literary texts written by Kim S. Robinson and Andrey Platonov
Alfie Bown
21st of March 2025 | 18.00 CET/12.00 EST
(Direct link for registration here)
Title: Capitalism, Psychosis and the Digital
Short description: This course explores a number of areas in which digital life intersects with desire, including dating apps, video games, conspiracy theory hubs, meme communities, blogging, podcasting and AI. It argues that in analysing the digital subject, we can see a pattern emerging - visible both on the left and the right, among the progressives and the reactionaries - that can be understood as psychotic, in the psychoanalytic sense of the word. The word Psychosis plays various roles socially, medically and analytically, but in its formal psychoanalytic function as the description of a psychic structure, it can help us to understand the effect of contemporary capitalism on its subjects, without falling into oppositional or identatarian thinking. The course hopes to begin the work of learning to live in, or even oppose, psychotic capitalism.
Ben Woodard
27th of March 2025 | 18.00 CET / 12.00 EST
(Direct link for registration here)
Title: On the abuse of genetics in the 21st Century
Short description: This open seminar will explore the relationship between genetics, criminology, and politics in the 21st century. In particular, it will examine how the popularization and simplification of genetics in the 21st century has fed into far-right ideology and the resurrection of eugenics.
Borna Radnik
28th of March 2025 | 18.00 CET / 12.00 EST
(Direct link for registration here)
Title: The Dialectic of Freedom, Necessity, and Time in Hegel
Short Description: While commentators and scholars accept that Hegel’s idea of freedom is a historical achievement, there is less consensus on the exact role of historicity and temporality in Hegel’s conception of self-determining freedom. Against the liberal readings of Hegel’s political philosophy that interpret him as a thinker of recognition, and against those that would dismiss him as a reactionary conservative, this course aims to reveal a more revolutionary and radical Hegel in the tradition of Hegelian Marxism. By showing how time, history, and necessity contextualize and determine Hegel’s idea of freedom, we will grasp the radical element of Hegel’s thought.