Call for Participation – Summer Session 21-28th of July 2025 Reading What Is Absent and Hidden In Jose de Acostas (1590)
Call for Participation
Scholarship Requests April 30th
Registration Deadline: May 15, 2025
Summer session 21-28th of July 2025:
Reading what is absent and hidden in José de Acostas (1590)
Historia Natural y Morales de las Indias
(Jyväskylä, Finland)
CFP in Brief
You are warmly invited to apply to be part of the “Praxis of Social Imaginaries” study circle. This community operates within the Nordic Summer University and sets out to foster a platform for trans- and inter-disciplinary research. By bringing people together from various different disciplines and fields of artistic work into shared laboratories of praxis, we aim to create a transformational learning environment. This summer, the focus is on reading some of the books found in José de Acostas (1590) Historia Natural y Morales de las Indias. We will particularly work on how to read what is absent and hidden in a text centring European and Jesuit ways of interpreting the lands and cultures of Anahuac and Tawantinsuyu.
Theologian Willie James Jennings writes in his The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race (2010), that the reason for the Western Church’s difficulty in grasping its deep involvement in the formation of the modern racial condition fully is due to the distorted social imaginary that was formed when the first theologians and conquistadores passed over the Atlantic to conquer the “New World”. One of the leading theological voices in re-imagining the world after the textual authorities – both biblical, theological and philosophical – had been questioned and altered through the experiences in the “New World” was the Jesuit pater José de Acosta. Jennings describes that Acosta’s Historia Natural y Morales de las Indias (1590) earned him the title “the Pliny of the New World”. Historia was one of the most comprehensive descriptions of the Americas for its time, widely translated and spread across Europe. According to Jennings, Acosta’s treatment of creation and description of new ways to imagine the doctrine of creation in relation to the Christian presence in “the New World” came to alter European consciousness for centuries.
De-colonial scholar Walter D. Mignolo, states that when engaging with Acosta’s Historia the reader “should keep in mind what is constantly absent and silenced in the narrative.” The replacement, absence and silence of Amerindian voices is another important theme of this gathering and our sessions aim at bringing forth counter narratives to Acosta’s story.
To learn more about our transdisciplinary approach and approach to Indigenous-centered research ethics, please see the section “About Our Study Circle” below.
To Apply
Send a short introduction to yourself, your interest in the study circle, your status (scholar, artist, student, independent researcher, etc.) and how you want to contribute to the sessions that are arranged during the summer. Additionally, if you are interested in receiving a scholarship, either towards the participation fee, travels or both, provide a preliminary budget for the costs you need to be covered.
How to participate?
The aim is to create a community that learns together. For this, your full participation is of importance. Please let me know how you would like to contribute! You can choose from the following or suggest something else:
Lead reading sessions in a workshop format
Give a small idea about how you would want to work with the texts provided by Acostas. This can be a session of either 30 minutes or max 1,5h.
Lead an intervention or artistic presentation for our community that is connected to the topic of this summer session
Give a short description of your proposed performance, workshop or talk related to the themes of absent and hidden knowledge.
Engaging counter narratives
Even though the focus of these sessions is on José de Acostas, also other writings, like Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala’s El primer nueva crónica y buen gobierno or the Codex Aubin, are important sources for counter narratives. Give a short description of how you would want to lead the group into exploring the alternative readings.
Student Participant
You can also participate in this transdisciplinary reading, listening and storytelling work by being an active member of the community. Please indicate if you intend to work towards credits or if you are part of the students and researchers from Åbo Akademi University that are taking part in the course on Transdisciplinary Learning.
Scholarships and Grants
Please also let us know if you will have institutional support for participation, accommodation and traveling costs or if you would want to be granted a scholarship. The earlier you send in your request, the better the chances we will be able to work with you to secure scholarships! People with institutional placement in the Nordic/Baltic region are given priority in scholarships but we are also seeking funding for people from other regions of the world.
30 April is the deadline for applying for a scholarship – see below for more information. Registration and payments in the webshop are due May 15th 2025. Please reach out and express your interest earlier if at all possible.
Who can participate?
The Nordic Summer University (NSU) is open to all who want to engage in transdisciplinary and mutual learning under the values of equality and openness. You can be a student at bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral level, and you can be a researcher, a scientist, an artist or work in a cultural or other third sector organization. The study circle is explicitly open to people of all faiths. As a community investigating historical and living cosmologies, we are welcoming to Indigenous and artistic research with spiritual dimensions.
The NSU Summer sessions are events where you can bring your whole family. There is a special children’s circle with activities and leaders who know all the Nordic languages and English that take care of your smaller family members while the study circle program is happening.
What van the study circle offer?
First and foremost, a platform for learning and collaboration.
For scholars, there are plans for joint publications in open-access peer reviewed journals to come out of the collaborations. And for artists and academics who want to collaborate, the research team connected to this study circle organises events where your works can be disseminated to the public. We have partnered up with forums like aboagora for presenting arts and science collaborations.
For students, the offer is: 5 ECTS points. If you are a MA or PhD student, active participation in this Winter Symposium can afford you 5 ECTS points. If you further study at Åbo Akademi University (or any other Finnish university under the JOO sopimus) this event will be accounted for as the following course (Social Imaginaries and Transdisciplinary Learning 5 sp) in the minor-subject Social Justice and Sustainability which can be taken through Åbo Akademi University.
Where?
The summer session will take place at the Nordic Summer University from the 21th to 28th of July 2025, which will be held this year at the Alkio opisto in Jyväskylä, Finland. Arrival is expected in the afternoon on the 21st and departure in the morning of the 28th.
Dates to keep in mind:
30 April: Deadline for applying for grant/scholarship.
1 May: Webshop opens – pay for registration, room/board etc.
15 May: Deadline for registration through the webshop
Prices:
The price range for the full week includes membership, lodging, meals and the program.
- 450 EUR — scholarship receivers (stay in 4–5 people apartments)
- 440 EUR — shared lodging (indoor camp rooms (shared accommodation)
- 400 EUR — camping
- 700 EUR — bed in a twin room
- 850 EUR — single room
- 650 EUR — family room [per person]
- 950 EUR — institutional price PhD
- 1250 EUR — institutional price. Institutional price is intended for participants whose attendance is paid for by their institutions, e.g. trough research grants or similar dedicated funding
Scholarship and grant program
Scholarship and grant applications are due April 30th.
– Scholarship: exclusively for Nordic/Baltic students
– Grant: inclusive for all other students and people in need, also non-Nordic participants.
If you would like to apply for a scholarship and/or grant, the relevant documents need to be sent to coordinators at the email laura.hellsten@abo.fi with the following information:
Full name, e-mail and citizenship
Current employment/academic status
Number of NSU events attended so far (including both Winter and Summer Sessions)
Reasons for applying: Why should NSU give you the grant? Include an estimate for your travel costs to and from Jyväskylä with public transportations. (no air-fares)
A typical day in the summer session
- 07:30–9:00 Breakfast
- 08:15–9:00 Morning Exercise
- 9:00–10.30 Study circle activities
- 10.30–10.45 Fika/Coffee
- 10.45–12.15 Study circle activities
- 12.15–13.45 Lunch
- 13.45–15.15 Study circle activities
- 15.15–15.30 Fika/Coffee
- 15.30–17.00 Keynote/NSU workshops, assemblies, meetings and discussion
- 18.00–19.30 Dinner
- From 19.30 Cultural Program
About the Study Circle
The Nordic Summer University study circle Praxis of Social Imaginaries: Cosmologies, Othering and Liminality invite all who are interested in joining our group to investigate the praxis of reading together, the praxis of listening and the praxis of telling stories. We welcome applications from researchers, scientists, and artists, as well as students at bachelor, master, or doctoral levels. As a community investigating historical and living cosmologies, we are welcoming to Indigenous as well as artistic researchers (and others) who engage with spiritual practices. Our study circle is open to people of all faiths.
About the Approach of Transdisciplinary Research
In transdisciplinary research scholars create collaborations with artists and activists in ways in which all are equal partners in a joint endeavor to study and change complex problems. In interdisciplinary research, scholars come together with researchers from other fields than their own, in order to establish collaborations where complex phenomena can be approached from various angles at the same time. Both trans- and inter-disciplinary research requires time and in-depth work in order to become truly fruitful. This study circle wants to provide room for these kinds of processes. The central method toward that end is the reading of medieval traveling accounts. We follow European theological elites as they and their learned scholarly communities encounter “Others” on their borders as well as within their lands. We will also be studying the Indigenous epistemologies, relationships to lands, nature and cultures, and social change that existed in parallell with what was the majority view of University settings.
About Our Incorporation of Indigenous-centered Research Protocols
In alliance with the ethical guidelines of Indigenous research this study circle is guided by the principals of Respect, Responsibility, Reciprocity and Consent that are formulated in the imagineNATIVE document ON-SCREEN PROTOCOLS & PATHWAYS: A Media Production Guide to Working with First Nations, Métis and Inuit Communities, Cultures, Concepts and Stories (2019) as well as the OFELAS – The Pathfinder Guidelines for Responsible Filmmaking with Sámi Culture and People (2021) by The Sámi Film & Culture Advisory Board. In the latter it is specifically articulated that culture, aesthetics, music, language, stories, histories and traditional cultural expressions are not things that can be the personal property of individual people nor given away as open resources. Rather, stories, languages, people, connection to space and place as well as specific crafts or arts are all interconnected and belong to a community which also includes ancestors and non-human kin (both spirits and animals). One of the aims of this study circle is thus to explore how we can approach historical documents and transdisciplinary research that respects Indigenous epistemological practices and wherein traditional forms of seeking knowledge are given space, time and resources.
The reading material at the center of our work is filled with depictions of cultures, peoples, lands and religious, artistic, culinary and sacred practices from times and places different from our own. Questions we envision will come up during the sessions are: What happens when we practice standing, sensing and listening with another in our explorations? What can we learn from encountering worldviews and scientific perspectives different from our own? What are the various media through which we can engage with texts and stories written hundreds of years before our time? What do we do if and when we find passages that are disturbing to us? How do we remain ethically grounded in practices that open for dialogue and critical scrutiny yet do not shut down or close off the possibilities of learning from what is uncomfortable? And how do we do all of this together with people from various different fields of study and cultural backgrounds that also have their own perspectives and contributions to how we can learn and explore together? These are some of the thematic questions we will pursue through-out this study cycle.
Ongoing research
In parallel with the different symposia of this study circle ethnographic fieldwork and artistic research is happening within the project Praxis of Social Imaginaries – a Theo-artistic Intervention for Transdisciplinary Research. The aim of that study is to follow and examine the processes of trans-disciplinary research that arise from the circle meetings as well as investigate the texts through transdisciplinary methods of engagement. Participation in the events of the study circle does not require participation in the ongoing research. However, due to GDPR regulations we want all the participants to be aware that research is conducted in collaboration with these events. We will thus also ask all participants to sign agreements on data collection. For those that are further interested in being collaborators in the ongoing investigation on trans-disciplinary research processes, informed consent agreements will be part of the procedures.
Financial support
This study circle and research work has been supported by Otto A. Malm foundation, Nordplus, Gustaf Packalén Minnesfond, Svenska Kulturfonden, Jubileumsfonden and Åbo Akademi University Foundation. Thank You!
Study circle co-ordinator
Laura Hellsten
Post-doctoral fellow at the Polin Institute at Åbo Akademi.
Doctor in Theology at Åbo Akademi University, Finland.