Critical Times

About

The Critical Times series is an innovative collaboration co-led by the Institute for Interdisciplinary Legal Studies at the University of Lucerne and the Centre for Law, Arts and Humanities at The Australian National University, and run in association with a global consortium of partner institutions.

The series was initially piloted in virtual form in 2021 and 2022. Due to the success of these events, the decision was made to develop the project into an annual summer school for graduate students, PhDs and early career researchers working at and around the intersections of law, the humanities and critical theory.

The Critical Times events nurture a spirit of intellectual openness and risk-taking. They offer a space for scholars from different disciplines, methodological orientations and backgrounds to come together and think – deeply, critically and creatively – about urgent matters of law, politics and justice.

The necessity for such thinking is as critical today as ever. The crises of our contemporary world are complex and layered. They demand open and deep theoretical reflection as well as new forms - and new scales - of imaginative visioning. Fired by the “fierce urgency of now”, the Critical Times series presents a unique opportunity for participants to immerse themselves in a week of critical thinking about the forces shaping our world, and of creative imagining of alternative possibilities.   

From 2020 to 2023, the Critical Times project was generously funded by Movetia. Movetia promotes exchange, mobility and cooperation within the fields of education, training and youth work – in Switzerland, Europe and worldwide. www.movetia.ch.