The Pelion Summer Lab for Cultural Theory and Experimental Humanities (PSL) is an initiative of the Laboratory of Social Anthropology at the University of Thessaly in Volos, Greece, and the non-profit organization Cosmopolitik: Network for Social Research and Public Action. This year’s summer lab will be held in conjunction with a Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Workshop and the Experimental Humanities Collaborative Network (EHCN).

The aim of this 10-day program is to convene an interdisciplinary group of graduate students, researchers, academics, artists and cultural producers from fields such as anthropology, history, sociology, interdisciplinary arts, philosophy, literature, gender studies, cultural and new media studies for a period of intensive exchange and exploration regarding the pressing problems and questions of our worlds.

This year’s theme After/Lives will address the pandemic-heightened sense of living on in a haunted world and on a damaged planet. The summer lab will be organized into three clusters – Spectrality, Ruination and Survivance – that contend in different, but interrelated, ways with the ongoingness and the unfolding of a past that is not past. The activities of the lab will culminate in a final public experiment: a Shrine designed by the cohort.

Who: Our remarkable faculty this year includes Elizabeth Chin, Gaston Gordillo, Susan Lepselter, Pamila Gupta, Alice Von Bieberstein, Özge Serin, Olga Cielemęcka, Gene Ray, Krista Caballero, Dominique Townsend, Gwyn Isaac, Penelope Papailias & George Mantzios.

Where: The conference center of the village of Makrinitsa, in Pelion, Greece, located in the historic building of the former primary school.

Eligibility: MA students, doctoral candidates, recent PhDs, independent researchers, artists, early career scholars and, in special cases, advanced undergraduate students.

Application: Applications submitted online here. Deadline April 15th, 2022.

Fees: No tuition. There is a 150E administrative fee, payable to Kosmopolitik: Network for Social Research and Public Action. Limited needs-based scholarships available.

Expenses: Participants are responsible for expenses related to travel to Makrinitsa, food and lodging. The PSL hosts a welcome dinner, farewell dinner/party and a lunch during our beach excursion. Discounted rates are available to PSL participants at local hotels.

Information:   For   more   details,   please   visit   the   PSL   website,   or   contact   the   organizing   committee   at .