Image: Claire Giblin, Big Orange, acrylic on canvas, 2004

Core Committee

GREGORY J. SEIGWORTH

Millersville University

MICHAEL LECHUGA

University of New Mexico

MATHEW ARTHUR

Capilano University

WENDY J. TRURAN

Northeastern University



 

hello@affectsociety.com

SSA is a member-funded
nonprofit (S0074830)
Image: Claire Giblin, Big Orange, acrylic on canvas, 2004

Affect and be affected at the second Society for the Study of Affect Summer School (SSASS). Co-hosted by the Society for the Study of Affect and Dr. Michael Lechuga at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque from August 6th to 8th, 2025, this intimate summer school is an opportunity to think/​learn/​feel in community with some of the finest folks working in/​around affect studies. Join us for SSASS #SCAR!

THE THEME: #SCAR

The scar—as activating concept and as lived reality—is a key animating figure for this summer school. What stories do scars tell? Scars are often invisible or interior. But they’re also jaggedly present as a mangled landscape or relation. Our personal and collective bodies bear the mark of scars from events—even generations—long-past. The notion of 'scar' will be traced and anticipated across various zones of elaboration—through all manner of swerves and suturings—between these three summer seminars and closely associated activities.


Subject-formation, relationality, and reciprocity
(nurturance, porosity, harmony)
Cosmological wonder & de-/re-composition
(interconnection, emergence, vastness)
Authoritarian affects
(exultation, righteousness, grievance, and vindication)
Realisms
(weight of the world, immanence, conditions of possibility)


Read about the full #SCAR theme here (including a welcome from our host Michael Lechuga):
Theme and Welcome (PDF)

Read descriptions of the seminars:
Seminars (PDF)


WE WILL EXPLORE

  • The complex affectual choreographies of authoritarian movements—those currents of exaltation, grievance, and celebratory nationalisms that shape collective bodies and political formations: atmospheres, environmental sensations, individual and shared dissociations.
  • The radical potential of wonder that fractures linear temporalities and opens onto cosmic horizons as well as the everyday continuous fracturings into an emergence of terror and opportunity, the awe-full nature of destruction and radical right deworlding.
  • The profound ways the original peoples of New Mexico engage their affective ecologies, where sensing-with-land generates possibilities beyond settler-colonial epistemologies.
  • The way that care practices—with attention to how the intimate scales of relationship might seed different futures—might join with wider forces (more-than-human) as trans-ecologies and cosmologies of abundance and wonder and serious mischief-making and... more.


Core Committee

GREGORY J. SEIGWORTH

Millersville University

MICHAEL LECHUGA

University of New Mexico

MATHEW ARTHUR

Capilano University

WENDY J. TRURAN

Northeastern University

 

hello@affectsociety.com

SSA is a member-funded
nonprofit (S0074830)

Registration

Registration opens Saturday, June 7th, 2025. To attend the summer school, you must be a member of the Society for the Study of Affect.
REGISTER NOW

EARLY BIRD RATE

Register before July 1, 2025

Student, Early Career, Non-Academic

1 seminar: $225
2 seminars: $400
3 seminars: $500
Plus $6 processing fee

Tenured Faculty

1 seminar: $325
2 seminars: $500
3 seminars: $650
Plus $6 processing fee

REGULAR RATE

Register after July 1, 2025

Student, Early Career, Non-Academic

1 seminar: $300
2 seminars: $475
3 seminars: $575
Plus $6 processing fee

Tenured Faculty

1 seminar: $400
2 seminars: $575
3 seminars: $725
Plus $6 processing fee

Seminars are capped no more than 20-25 students each. Seminars do not run concurrently so attendees may register to participate in one, two, or all three seminars (on acceptance). If you need anything (beyond the emailed notification of acceptance) in order to receive travel support or other funding to facilitate your attendance at this summer school, please contact hello@affectsociety.com.

THE FORMAT

Attendees have the opportunity to enroll in 1-3 seminars across the week.* Each seminar meets two hours per day across three days. This means that attendees can take multiple seminars if they wish. Talks and sensory workshops and experiences are included in the registration fee on a first come, first served basis.

THE SCHEDULE

We will post the schedule for the summer school by June 10 (maybe sooner). The three seminars will rotate across the three days: 10am–noon, 1:30pm–3:30pm, and 4:30–6:30pm.

SEMINAR #1

The Shitshow

Katie Stewart + Greg Seigworth

S1 DESCRIPTION (PDF)

SEMINAR #2

“Hey. You. There.” Sensing Interpellation

Dylan Robinson + Oliver Shao

S2 DESCRIPTION (PDF)

SEMINAR #3

Unsettled Attunements, Discombobulations, and Palimpsests of Feeling: Sensing SCAR(s)

Asilia Franklin-Phipps + Bretton A. Varga

S3 DESCRIPTION (PDF)

TALK

Zoom session with Erin Manning and Brian Massumi

EXPERIENCES

Also: a couple of sensory-based workshops and more opportunities to experience.

* Seminars are capped no more than 20-25 students each.

HOW TO APPLY

Those interested in attending the summer school must apply to the seminar(s) they would like to attend. On acceptance, attendees can register for the experience. Attendees can apply to more than one seminar.

To apply please:
  • Read through the seminar description(s) including participation expectations, advance readings/writing etc.
  • Submit a short essay (200-300 words). Each of the seminars requires you to submit a brief essay that shows how your interests intersect with the seminar’s themes.
  • Email your essay to hello@affectsociety.com no later than Sunday, June 1st, 2025.
  • Notifications of acceptance will be emailed no later than Friday, June 6th, 2025.
  • Registration opens Saturday, June 7th, 2025.
Seminars are capped no more than 20-25 students each. Seminars do not run concurrently so you may register to participate in one, two, or all three seminars (as long as your written submission has been accepted for every seminar in which you wish to enroll).

If you have any questions or concerns about the registration process, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Registration

Registration opens Saturday, June 7th, 2025. To attend the summer school, you must be a member of the Society for the Study of Affect.
REGISTER NOW

EARLY BIRD RATE

Register before July 1, 2025

Student, Early Career, Non-Academic

3 seminars: $500
2 seminars: $400
1 seminar: $225
Plus $6 processing fee

Tenured Faculty

3 seminars: $650
2 seminars: $500
1 seminar: $325 Plus $6 processing fee

REGULAR RATE

Register after July 1, 2025

Student, Early Career, Non-Academic

3 seminars: $575
2 seminars: $475
1 seminar: $300
Plus $6 processing fee

Tenured Faculty

3 seminars: $725
2 seminars: $575
1 seminar: $400 Plus $6 processing fee

Seminars are capped no more than 20-25 students each. Seminars do not run concurrently so attendees may register to participate in one, two, or all three seminars (on acceptance). If you need anything (beyond the emailed notification of acceptance) in order to receive travel support or other funding to facilitate your attendance at this summer school, please contact hello@affectsociety.com.

GETTING HERE

We recommend that all attendees arrive to Albuquerque no later than Tuesday evening August 5th or early morning Wednesday August 6th—there will be a brief opening reception starting at 9am, and then the first seminar session starts at 10am on Wednesday August 6th. The last seminar will wrap up at 6:30pm on Friday August 8th. If you can stay through Saturday, we are planning some local travel and sightseeing on Saturday August 9th for those interested (details to come).

SEMINARS

All seminars and other activities will happen at Communication & Journalism of the University of New Mexico located in Albuquerque at Redondo Dr NE, Albuquerque, NM 87106. We are at the corner of Central Ave. and Yale Dr. SE.

FLIGHTS

Round-trip flights into and out of Albuquerque International Sunport (Airport) are most highly recommended. Travel from the airport to the summer school building site and surrounding hotels takes approximately 10 minutes via Taxi or Rideshare (about $20 depending on time of day) or ABQ RIDE Route 50 (about $1 and takes about 20 minutes).

HOTELS

A summer school ROOM RATE has been set at the following three downtown hotels in Albuquerque. All hotels are within 2 miles of our University of New Mexico summer school site, the Communication & Journalism Building. There is a free ART Bus that runs along Central Avenue that will stop within two blocks of the hotels and the C&J Building.

SpringHill Suites Albuquerque University Area

18 minute walk to summer school site

Preferred! Details here. Reserved room block. Book before July 7 for discount. Book your group rate for UNM Department of Communication & Journalism using this link.

$139/night for a Double Queen Suite

(+$12 a night for parking)

Hilton Garden Inn Albuquerque Downtown

33 minute walk to summer school site

Details here. Contact Kari Bryan at (505) 808-1038 directly to book at UNM Rate.

$130/night for a King or Double Queen Room

(+$12 a night for parking)

Hotel Parq Central

26 minute walk to summer school site

Details here. Call (505) 242-0040 to book using group name: “UNM AFFECT SUMMER SCHOOL.”

$160/night for a King

$165/night for a Deluxe King

$170/night for a Double Bed

$180/night for an Executive King

$190/night for a Suite

$285/night for a Cottage

(free parking)

ROOM SHARING

If attendees wish to room share with others to save costs, our SCAR summer school committee is happy to assist in coordinating these arrangements. Send a message to hello@affectsociety.com with the subject line ‘room share’ and we will connect all folks interested in room sharing.

MEALS

We will be providing our SCAR summer school participants with two meals during the summer school (lunches on day one and day three). There will always be breakfast nibbles (fruit, breakfast bars, pastries/donuts) and coffee every morning. Meals will be vegetarian. We can provide vegan options too: please notify us if you are vegan or have specific food allergies. Albuquerque’s downtown has lots of affordable and delicious options for eats and drinks.