The Summer School in Global Studies and Critical Theory
 

POLITICAL IMAGINATION AFTER COVID:

LIFE, RACE, TECHNOLOGY, ABOLITION

Bologna • June 21 – July 2, 2021

The outbreak of the pandemic has definitely challenged political imagination. The global spread of the coronavirus, enabled by dramatic changes in the relation between humans and nature, has disrupted forms of life and tested established notions in critical theory, as for instance biopolitics and globalization. The deep social and economic crisis brought about by Covid-19 has exacerbated inequalities and reshuffled economies of mobility and immobilities, with huge implications for labor and life. New boundaries have emerged, while hygienic-sanitary measures have made the policing of international borders even harder. In such countries as the U.S., Brazil, and India, the pandemic disproportionately hit racialized minorities and the poor in general, while the meaning of “public health” is everywhere at the center of heated debates. At the same time, mobilizations under the heading “Black Lives Matter” in the U.S. (with resonances elsewhere) have powerfully addressed such questions, instantiating the building of coalitions that take the question of race and racism as their point of departure foreshadowing at the same time a possible politics during and after Covid-19. All these questions figure prominently in the 2021 edition of the summer school, which aims at combining a reflection on shifting configurations of life and technology in a time of pandemic with a focus on race and abolition in the wake of the “Black Lives Matter” mobilizations. 

Up to 40 participants will be selected and required to attend all plenary lectures, the two morning courses, and at least one afternoon class per week.

The Academy and other sponsors offer several grants covering fees, accomodation and/or travel.