FUTURE/FUTURES

For centuries thinking about the future was basically an optimist and progress driven endeavor, aimed at advancing towards the best of possible worlds through the improvement of science and technology.

Throughout the 20th century, euphoria about progress slowly but steadily turned into discomfort, due to the growing awareness about scientific development’s immense capability to cause pain and infortune. The shortcomings and aporias of the present have strangely produced a new retrotopia, focused on reinventing the past and less on clearly conceiving of the future-to-be. This is caused by the globalization of indifference, the crisis of democratic states, the deepening of cultural and religious wars and the rising visibility of extreme violence, linked to terrorism and war. We are likewise faced with a resource crisis and an obvious planetary exhaustion, just as the fourth technological revolution forces us to question the future of work and hence of the very definition of the human as a homo laborans. 

In view of the different rhythms, contexts and directions of our global communities, given the clear difference of access to basic commodities and even to the social and political right to have rights, given the uneven capability of individuals throughout the globe to shape the future to come, it is clear that future must be graphed in the plural, as futures that are culturally situated in distinct global realities. In addition, ‘futures’ has become a sort of a floating signifier swaying from prospective to finance, from science fiction to organizational theory, from anthropology to psychoanalysis.

The XIII Lisbon Summer School for the Study of Culture is dedicated to the study of the representation of the future(s) as trope and idea. Papers are welcome on the following topics, amongst others:

Future or futures

Culture(s) of the future; culture(s) in the future

Imagining the future: representations in literature, cinema and the arts

Space and/in time

Science and technology: potential and risks for life in the future

Innovative tools, materials, systems and techniques

Cyberfutures

Memory and trauma: between past and future

(De)Colonizing the future

The future(s) of the Other

Speculation, prediction, anticipation and the production of possible futures

Futurist thought: ‘new’/’neo’, ‘re’

Dance of prefixes: from u- and dys-topia to retro-topia

The protractive or transformative quality of the future

The future of woke culture

Fear of the future and the fear of no future

Crisis, disaster, conflict, and the disruption of the future

Nostalgia, hope, and the promise of a brighter future

A more than human future: human, posthuman, nonhuman and other possibilities



We encourage proposals coming from the fields of culture studies, film and the visual arts, literary and translation studies, history, anthropology, media and psychology, among others.


Paper proposals

Proposals should be sent to lxsummerschool@gmail.com no later than February 28, 2023 and include paper title, abstract in English (max. 200 words), name, e-mail address, institutional affiliation and a brief bio (max. 100 words) mentioning ongoing research.


Applicants will be informed of the result of their submissions by March 31, 2023.


Rules for presentation

The organizing committee shall place presenters in small groups according to the research focus of their papers. They are advised to stay in these groups for the duration of the Summer School, so a structured exchange of ideas may be developed to its full potential.


Full papers submission

Presenters are required to send in full papers no later than May 31, 2023.



The papers will then be circulated amongst the members of each research group. In the slot allotted to each participant (30’), only 10’ may be used for a brief summary of the research piece. The Summer School is a place for networked exchange of ideas, and organizers wish to have as much time as possible for a structured discussion between participants. Therefore, in each slot, 10’ will be used for presentation, and 20’ for discussion.





Registration fees

Participants with paper – 300€ for the entire week (includes lectures, master classes, doctoral sessions, lunches and closing dinner)


Participants without paper – 60€ per day (lunches and closing dinner not included)


Fee waivers

For The Lisbon Consortium students and CECC researchers, there is no registration fee.



For students from institutions affiliated with the European Summer School in Cultural Studies (ESSCS), members of the Excellence Network in Cultural Studies and members of the Critical Humanities Network the registration fee is 80€.



This Summer School is devised in close collaboration with the 2023 ESSCS on the topic "Bouncing Forward". The ESSCS 2023 and the XIII Lisbon Summer School for the Study of Culture are intended as complementary Summer Schools investigating disparate elements of a common concern. Applicants, who wish to attend both Summer Schools, should indicate this in their application. A reduced participation fee will be available for those attending both events.




Organizing Committee

Isabel Capeloa Gil
Peter Hanenberg
Alexandra Lopes
Adriana Martins
Diana Gonçalves
Paulo de Campos Pinto
Rita Faria
Ana Margarida Abrantes
Joana Moura
Rita Bueno Maia
Sofia Pinto
Verena Lindemann