Initiated by the (Post)Authoritarian Landscapes Research Centre (PAScapes) at Vilnius University, this twofold event invites participants to examine the notion of the ecosocial as a landscape, milieu, and site of encounter with a potential to reconfigure coexistence and build practices of transformation.
The concept of the ecosocial functions both as a conceptual umbrella and as a methodological tool for addressing interdisciplinary challenges that encompass philosophical, environmental, social, authoritarian, and postcolonial dimensions. Although still insufficiently examined within the context of philosophy, it rests on strong philosophical foundations. Nancy Krieger, the originator of ecosocial theory, reveals the intertwining of biological and psychosocial domains, aiming to analyze the distribution of disease by tracing the interconnections between pathological development and the social conditions that structure public health. Beyond this context, the notion also encompasses ecosocial imaginaries (Sandra Waddock), inviting us to reconsider the ways in which humans relate to the world beyond the frameworks of social imaginaries (Charles Taylor) or collective imaginaries (Cornelius Castoriadis). Thinkers such as Gregory Bateson, Félix Guattari, and Isabelle Stengers have emphasized that ecology exceeds the boundaries of environmental science, extending into the mental and social domains. At its core, ecology can thus be understood as the study of relationships in all their forms and interconnections. Accordingly, the eco-societal dimension can be approached through inclusive frameworks that require a careful reconsideration of places, roles, and sites of encounter and interaction—ecosocial landscapes that shape our coexistence. It is no coincidence that the ecosocial is also associated with the field of social work or education sciences, as it carries a strong emphasis on practices oriented toward transformation and change.
We invite contributions from philosophy and humanities, social and environmental sciences, memory and genocide studies, STS, ecocriticism and landscape studies, Western and Russian colonialism studies, cognitive sciences, history, archaeology, and beyond.
Keynote Speakers include:
Luba Jurgenson (Sorbonne University)
Lambros Malafouris (University of Oxford)
Svitlana Matviyenko (Simon Fraser University)
Cary Wolfe (Rice University)
Vaiva Daraškevičiūtė (PAScapes, Vilnius University)
Marija Drėmaitė (PAScapes, Vilnius University)
Mintautas Gutauskas (PAScapes, Vilnius University)
Kristupas Sabolius (PAScapes, Vilnius University)
The summer school and conference convene keynotes from philosophy, literary and memory studies, cognitive archeology, critical media studies, and posthuman studies whose work frames ecosocial landscapes as sites of memory, relation, conflict, and transformation. Luba Jurgenson engages with testimonial forms and the politics of remembrance to examine how landscapes, as archives of collective memory, bear the sediment of violence and displacement and are thus essential in building inclusive practices of care and repair. Lambros Malafouris’ research is cross-disciplinary and focuses on the dynamic, relational interplay between mind, material culture, and environment. Through his Material Engagement Theory (MET), he argues that cognition is not confined to the brain but emerges through our ongoing, reciprocal engagements with the material world. Svitlana Matviyenko analyzes militarized infrastructures, from nuclear regimes to media platforms, showing how technopolitical ecologies shape contemporary social life, especially in the context of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Cary E. Wolfe articulates a posthumanism that reorients ethical address beyond human exceptionalism and proposes a grammar for designating sites of encounter across multispecies, technopolitical domains, and institutions. Together with the participants, these contemporary thinkers will help operationalize the ecosocial as a dynamic milieu of relations across mental and material domains. We invite participants to engage these frameworks to design projects oriented toward concrete transformation.
The event also includes four keynote speakers from the PASscapes Research Centre and Vilnius University. Vaiva Daraškevičiūtė explores aesthetics, visual culture, and the ontology of nature, recently focusing on the entanglement of modernity and the Anthropocene. She examines how post-authoritarian landscapes shape ecosocial imaginaries and explores how aesthetic experience mediates being in late modernity. Marija Drėmaitė research centers around 20th-century architecture, modernism, and industrial/cultural heritage. She examines how industrialisation and urban environments reflect broader socio-political transformations in the Baltic and Soviet contexts, additionally focusing on reinterpreting modernist architectural legacies, such as inter-war Kaunas. Mintautas Gutauskas works in phenomenology, hermeneutics, and the critique of anthropocentrism. He explores anthropological difference, human–animal relations, and the philosophy of waste, with recent research addressing the Anthropocene, focusing on eco-phenomenology, liminal subjects, and the structures sustaining human-centred worldviews. Kristupas Sabolius studies imagination and its intersections with media, creativity, and ontology. He views imagination as a relational, ecological faculty, proposing milieu and co-existence as alternatives to human-centred thinking, also reflecting the environmental problems and possibilities of being-together in a technologized world.
The Summer School
Vilnius University, Faculty of Philosophy
August 21-26, 2026
The Summer School is dedicated to early-career professionals, primarily PhD students. It will feature keynote addresses, lectures by scholars from relevant fields, presentations by participating PhD students, and joint discussions. The participants are also encouraged to stay for the Conference that will immediately follow the Summer School.
Participation is free but limited to 20 participants. Although travel expenses are not covered, free accommodation will be provided for international participants (those coming from outside Vilnius University). Coffee breaks and light meals will also be available.
Abstracts must be 300-500 words in length and feature your ongoing research in relation to the problem of the ecosocial. Your affiliation, the topic of Phd (MA, postdoc) thesis, and supervisor must be indicated. Short presentations based on the submitted abstracts will be carried out and discussed during the Summer School.
How to submit an abstract
1. Send an email to info@pascapes.lt with your abstract attached (acceptable formats: .doc, .docx, .rtf, .pdf).
2. Use the subject line: Summer School. Ecosocial Ideas 2026
The deadline for submitting an abstract: extended to January 18, 2026
Notification of reviewers’ decision: February 10, 2026.
The Conference
Vilnius University, Faculty of Philosophy
August 27-28, 2026
The conference builds upon a growing body of philosophical and interdisciplinary research carried out at PAScapes. The program will include the above-indicated keynote addresses, invited speakers, and the presentations by the selected applicants. Appropriate topics for submission include, among others:
- ecosocial ontologies and materialities;
- social, technological, and environmental interactions;
- aesthetics, art, and the ecosocial;
- cognitive dimensions of the ecosocial;
- the methodologies of ecosocial frameworks;
- genocide, trauma, and the ecosocial;
- ambicolonial (Western and Russian) perspectives and the ecosocial.
Abstracts must be 500 words in length; please add your short bio and affiliation. Talks will be 30 minutes, including Q&A. Participation is free, but the number of presentations is limited. The organizers do not cover travel and accommodation costs. Coffee breaks will be provided. Lunch breaks and the Conference dinners will be offered for an additional cost.
How to submit an abstract
1. Send an email to info@pascapes.lt with your abstract attached (acceptable formats: .doc, .docx, .rtf, .pdf).
2. Use the subject line: Conference. Ecosocial Ideas 2026
The deadline for submitting an abstract: March 11, 2026.
Notification of reviewers’ decision: April 1, 2026.
Organizers
Ecosocial Ideas Research Group at PAScapes, Vilnius University
Kristupas Sabolius, Head of Group
Mintautas Gutauskas, Vaiva Daraškevičiūtė, Anda Pleniceanu, Dominykas Barusevičius
More information:
info@pascapes.lt
www.pascapes.lt
