Calls

 

In Western industrialized nations, the average life expectancy is around eighty years. It seems difficult for us to think beyond this time span, and only few projects and institutions take a longer view. And while current concepts for nuclear waste repositories, monasteries, and the Long Now Project are all attempting to do so, some hunter-
gatherer societies have lived in communities with non-humans for tens of thousands of years. Universities might be hundreds of years old, and some religions measure their existance in thousands of years, even as they have undergone major changes. The oldest institutions in Europe are therefore the Catholic Church and, remarkably: a few very old breweries. In Japan, there are guest houses that are more than a thousand years old.
ifk’s next summer academy will explore longtermism, a way of thinking that goes beyond our lifetime and also beyond the lifetime of the many large and small institutions around us: What makes people and institutions able to plan very far ahead? And what about climate change with its effects on human, non-human and even geological modes of existence? The question of longtermism becomes even more urgent as we realize that »webs of life« that have been built over centuries and millenia are becoming fragile, affecting lifecycles of organisms and seasonal rhythms.

 

Date: 25 August – 2 September 2026  
Place: Traunkirchen, Upper Austria

PARTICIPANTS: Young academics and artists with a background in the humanities who are particularly interested in cultural studies. Austrian applicants or those working at Austrian academic institutions are particularly encouraged  to apply.

APPLICATION DEADLINE: March/April 2026

The program includes accommodation, meals (excluding drinks) and the access to a range of work materials. Travelling to and from Traunkirchen must be covered by the participants themselves.