Join the University of Antwerp Summer School on historical media. Explore magic lanterns to VR through talkes, workshops, field trips, and performances.
Across five days, we will explore how hands-on engagement with media devices - from magic lanterns and anatomical models to panoramas and virtual reality environments - can activate new forms of historical understanding. This approach resonates with a broader turn in the humanities toward material and sensory epistemologies - ways of knowing that emerge from doing. Historians of science and media have increasingly acknowledged that manuals and archives only tell part of the story. The physical handling of devices, the gestures involved in their operation, and the environments in which they were experienced all contribute to a fuller picture of how media technologies functioned and keep functioning socially, politically, and culturally. The week combines:
- Talks and panels by international researchers
- Interactive workshops with artists and technicians
- Field trips to the Ghent University Museum (GUM) and the Photo Museum Antwerp (FOMU)
- An evening lantern lecture performance
- Group projects and exchange sessions where participants share their own skills and research
Our summer school offers:
- An interdisciplinary framework for analysing historical media and their performative and artistic uses.
- Awareness of the ‘tacit knowledge’ embedded in the use of media technologies.
- A sensory perspective on the cultural and social inscriptions within media technologies.
Target group
The Summer School is aimed at research MA and PhD students and more advanced scholars in the field of Arts, Performance, Media and Cultural History from the University of Antwerp and other universities in Belgium and abroad.
Campus
This summer school takes place at Stadscampus (Prinsstraat 13, 2000 Antwerp) of the University of Antwerp. This campus is located in the city centre.
Micro-credential and study credits (ECTS)
6 credits will be awarded upon successful completion of the programme according to the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS).
To include the credits in the curriculum at the home institution, participants need an agreement with the responsible person at their university. University of Antwerp students eligible to include the ECTS credits as part of their study programme must register via Mobility Online and SisA.
All certificates of completion are issued as a micro-credential.
Learning outcomes
- Knowledge of a variety of concepts, methods, and approaches in the fields of cultural and performance studies and the histories of science, knowledge and media.
- Knowledge of most important key texts on science performance and the circulation of knowledge
- A greater understanding of how performance played a crucial role in the circulation of science, knowledge and visual culture and shaped modern Western culture.
- Acknowledgement of overlooked relations and prehistories of so-called ‘new’ media by considering the interplay between present-day media performances and the archaeological traces they carry.
Social programme
Antwerp Summer & Winter University offers a number of fun social activities to let participants discover the beautiful city of Antwerp and meet fellow students in a more informal way.
Examples of activities in past editions are a networking reception, a guided city walk, a pub quiz, a boardgame night, and rooftop yoga. All activities in the social programme are offered free of charge.
A few weeks before the start of the summer school, confirmed participants will receive an overview of all activities available during the programme, along with the opportunity to register.