The first CURE Summer School will take place from 22 to 26 September 2025, at Villa Vigoni, the German-Italian Centre for European Dialogue in Menaggio, Italy. Twenty doctoral candidates will receive full funding for travel and accommodation. The application deadline is 28 March 2025.
Despair is one of the predominant collective feelings today. In the face of raging wars, the rise of right-wing extremism, human rights violations, threats to democracy, rising temperatures and mass deaths, our present seems hopeless.
The grand narrative of progress has lost its mobilising power and has even been reversed by the climate crisis. Humanity is not heading for a better future: in fact, if we believe the countless dystopian tales that characterise our imagination, the worst is yet to come. However, despair does not necessarily mean resignation, passivity or withdrawal. A critical tradition of thought from Walter Benjamin to the Invisible Committee argues that it is not despair but rather hope that prevents us from taking action.
Even in contemporary novels that describe apocalyptic scenarios, a remnant, a "Despite everything!" can be recognised, which Jean-Paul Engélibert aptly describes as the "energy of despair". Georges Didi-Hubermann's Survival of the Fireflies or Rebecca Solnit's and Thelma Young-Lutunatabua's Not Too Late also remind us that even in the worst of times, fragile attempts are always made to create a future worth living.
The Summer School invites its participants to explore cultural practices that seek to counter what Franco Berardi calls "the slow erasure of the future". Together we want to explore how art, literature, series and films, but also critical theory or theology, deal with the theme of despair and mobilise this feeling to find ways around depression, denial, resentment and indifference.
What strategies, tools and forms of expression are currently being developed that bring out the unexpected in an anxious present, counteract stagnation and reinvent a positive collective imagination?
What answers have been found in other historical epochs and in other societies, in different regions of the world, and what can we learn from them?
To what extent can unfulfilled visions of the future serve as a reservoir and resource for energies that can be mobilised politically?
KEYNOTES Prof. Dr Donatella Di Cesare (Sapienza Università di Roma) Dr Camille de Toledo (philosopher and writer; Institute for Advanced Study Nantes)
We invite interested doctoral candidates to submit their application, including their CV and a letter of motivation of no more than two pages, via the application portal.
