2026 IACS Summer School

The 2026 IACS Summer School is titled Livable Futures and will be hosted by the Digital Narratives Studio, School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) in partnership with The Center for Cultural Studies, at CUHK, and Cultural Studies Department at Lingnan University.

The future has become an emergency. We live amid collapsing climates, datafied borders, disinformation wars, and infrastructures stretched thin by carelessness and extraction. Crisis has hardened into habit, and the only horizon offered to us is survival. Livable Futures begins with the refusal of this horizon. It insists that the work of imagining and sustaining life cannot be deferred. To live — now — is to act within uncertainty, to build forms of relation, repair, and imagination that make the present inhabitable.

Livability, as we frame it here, is not a condition but a mode of worlding: an ongoing act of making and maintaining the worlds we inhabit. To speak of livable futures is to ask how worlds are built, by whom, and for whom - and how they might be otherwise. This turn to Asia as Worlding, builds on Asia as Method, that has been a foundational thinking block of the 25 years of the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society. It is an invitation to think of Inter-Asia connections creating new possibilities of cohabitation and collaboration. Worlding allows us to situate theory, art, activism, and pedagogy as entangled labours in the making of shared futures. 

Dates: 25th July -  3rd August 2026.

Venue: School of Journalism & Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Participation Mode: In-person only

Primary Language: English

If you have any inquiries, please email: com-dns@cuhk.edu.hk

The 2026 Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Summer School invites its participants to inhabit this question: How do we conceive of livability as a critique and as an invitation to build futures that go beyond the threshold of survival and allow for conditions where communities thrive, live, and flourish even in the face of crises?

Hong Kong, as the site for imagining livable futures offers a profound position that weaves together multiple temporalities and geographies of transition. Located in a moment of uncertainty, and contesting with different practices of defining social, political, economic, and ecological futures, it becomes a lived example of how we imagine and build futures worth living in. The school invites the participants to engage with the lived reality of the city, through its history, current transformations, and the layered texture of life as it unfolds at the intersections of care, technology, and narratives of being. 

This Summer School is structured as a ten-day collaborative exploration of livability as critique and composition. It is designed as a slow, immersive movement from reflection to practice, from theory to world-making. Each day builds on the last — moving through three symposia on Narratives, Technologies, and Care, interspersed with practice-based labs that translate ideas into shared acts of composition.

Participant engagement is at the heart of this summer school. Alongside a fantastic faculty, the participants will participate in three mini symposia, each structured around a specific theme. The participants will present their research ideas through creative and conversational formats, rehearse their arguments for feedback from peers and faculty, and get to show case their work in conversation with different experts. Each participant will identify at least 1 theme in their own practice that they will extend to the theme of the symposium.

Narratives

“What keeps us alive is the stubborn will to narrate—to tell even the worst stories, so that the next time, someone might listen differently.” — Mahasweta Devi, “Draupadi,” in Breast Stories (1997)

Narratives are where worlding begins. To tell a story is to assert that life matters — that what has been silenced or broken can still be spoken and reimagined. In the face of systems that fragment and erase, narration becomes a form of survival, but also of invention. Stories make worlds: they hold memory, translate experience, and sketch the outlines of what might yet be possible. Within the framework of Livable Futures, narratives are acts of composition and care. They connect scattered voices across geographies and disciplines, weaving an Inter-Asia tapestry of shared questions: How do we live together after catastrophe? What kinds of futures can language hold? To narrate, here, is to world otherwise — to make the future audible in the present.

Technologies

“To think the future is not to predict but to compose: cosmotechnics asks how we might compose a future in which technology belongs to the multiplicity of worlds.” — Yuk Hui, The Question Concerning Technology in China (2016)

Technologies shape how we live, but they also reveal what we value. They are not neutral tools; they are architectures of possibility. In the age of algorithmic governance and planetary infrastructure, Livable Futures calls for a rethinking of technology not as progress, but as world-making — a way of building relations with ethical attention and plural imagination. Across Asia, where digital systems, urban experiments, and ecological responses evolve unevenly, the challenge is to imagine cosmotechnics — ways of making and maintaining technology that reflect the diversity of worlds we inhabit. Livable technologies are those that do not dominate the future, but allow it to grow.

Care

“Care is not a soft practice; it is the hard work of staying in relation when systems are designed to pull us apart.” — Jac SM Kee, Numun Fund Manifesto (2020)

Care is the affective and ethical ground of worlding. It is not sentiment or service; it is persistence — the daily, difficult labour of remaining connected in times of disconnection. Care sustains the infrastructures of survival: it binds the social, the emotional, and the political. To care is to recognize interdependence, to act from the understanding that one’s well-being is entangled with others’. Within the framework of this Summer School, care is also a method of pedagogy and practice: to think, teach, and organize in ways that hold space for difference without fragmentation. Against systems built on extraction and speed, care slows us down — asking how we might live together with dignity, patience, and courage. If the future is to be livable, it must be worlded through care — an ethics that endures.

Who can apply?

The IACS Summer School expands the idea of learning and learners by inviting advanced Masters Students, Graduate Level Researchers, Researchers in collectives and non-academic think tanks, Artists, Practitioners, and Professionals invested in producing Inter-Asia knowledge and frameworks, responding to collective questions and working with lived Inter-Asia experiences. There is no age limit, and no restrictions or mandates on institutional affiliation or positions. Preference will be given to those who have longer histories of IACS engagement or commitment to build on these connections. Participants from previous IACS conferences and summer school are especially invited to apply.

Registration Fees

The IACS Summer School works on differential registration fees to accommodate for participants coming from different geo-economic backgrounds.

• Working Professional / Practitioners: 400 USD
• Students from Economically Advanced Countries: 300 USD
• Students from low and mid-income Countries: 150 USD
• Local Students* (based in Hong Kong): 75 USD

Registration fees include tuition, a twin-shared accommodation in University college on campus for 10 nights, organised group visits for the school, breakfast, lunch and some meals. The participants will have to arrange for their own international and local travel costs (including flights, visas, local transportation), as well as some meals and local expenses.

*Please note that local students’ registration does not include accommodation.

Scholarship:

IACS has very few scholarships for exceptional cases, where we can waive registration fees for applicants who do not have access to institutional or personal funding. We will not be able to provide travel stipends or extra living costs to any participant.

Timeline: 

• Application deadline: 7th January
• First round admissions: 15th January
• Registration deadline: 20th February
• Second round admissions (from waitlist): 1st March
• Second round registration deadline: 21st March
• Invitation letters and logistics information: 15th April

Faculty:

The IACS Summer School 2026 brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars, artists, and practitioners from institutions across Asia, Europe, Australia, and North America. Working across fields including cultural studies, media studies, design, visual culture, environmental humanities, and digital technology studies, our invited faculty engage the Summer School’s central theme of livability through diverse critical and creative approaches.

Learn more

• What is the official course title, and who are the instructors?

The official title is Livable Futures: Asia as Worlding, hosted by the Digital Narratives Studio, School of Journalism and Communication at CUHK, in partnership with The Center for Cultural Studies (CUHK) and the Cultural Studies Department at Lingnan University. The course features a collaborative faculty; detailed information about instructors will be announced later.

• Are there exams or compulsory assessments?

There are no formal exams. Participants engage in presentations, creative research projects, and collaborative workshops. Each participant identifies one or more themes in their practice to extend in relation to the symposium.

• What certificate or credit do participants receive?

Participants will receive a certificate of completion from the IACS Summer School. The program does not offer academic credits.

• Is proof of English proficiency required?

The primary language of instruction is English. While formal proof of English proficiency (e.g., IELTS) is not explicitly required, participants are expected to have sufficient English proficiency so as to engage fully in discussions and activities.

• Are undergraduate students with strong research motivation and relevant international engagement/independent researchers eligible to apply?

Yes. While the summer school is primarily designed for graduate students, we very much welcome applicants from diverse backgrounds, including motivated undergraduate students with strong research interests and relevant international engagement,  who find resonance with the theme and aims of the program.

• I do not yet personally know a scholar within the IACS network who could serve as my referee. Would it be acceptable for me to list my academic supervisor as my referee instead?

Yes, it is acceptable to list your academic supervisor as your referee. While it is ideal for a referee to be (1) someone affiliated with one of the IACS institutional partners, (2) an individual member of the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society, or (3) someone who has participated in or presented at IACS activities in the past, this is not a requirement. Not having an IACS-affiliated referee will not affect your eligibility or the review process.

• I would like to ask if the referee needs to be a member of IACS, or if I enroll myself in the society, can I be my own referee for the summer school?

Self-nomination is possible, so you may list yourself as the referee if you prefer. If you do not have a suitable referee, please simply indicate that in your application and let us know. Not having a referee will not affect your eligibility or the review process.

• I wanted to ask whether applications to the 2026 IACS Summer School are open to collaborations/team submissions?

We welcome collaborative or team applications, but please note that we have a limited number of seats and aim to maintain a diverse cohort. Therefore, we may not be able to accommodate very large teams. All applicants should register and pay individually, rather than submitting a single team application. However, team members are welcome to indicate in their individual applications that they are applying as part of a group. As a general guideline, teams larger than three members may be difficult to accommodate.

• Is it possible for applicants with financial constraints to request consideration for a registration fee waiver?

Yes, IACS has very few scholarships for exceptional cases, where we can waive registration fees for applicants who do not have access to institutional or personal funding. You may apply for either a full or partial scholarship by providing a statement in the application form. Please note that we are unable to provide travel stipends or additional support for living expenses.

• Is there a fee structure for participants who do not require housing?

The category of Local Students (based in Hong Kong) category would be the most appropriate (does not include accommodation), and the corresponding fee is 75 USD. If you are admitted to the summer school, you may simply inform us of your category before proceeding with the registration fee payment.