materia is a futurist space where bright people explore the Zeitgeist from a world-utopia standpoint. This quarter, we have looked at everything from Chilean disaster poetry to NASA’s golden disk and the cosmic narratives that it produces to stories about the ocean as having created the conditions for further ocean exploration. Never have I found myself having to refer to this-or-that canonical thinker, but rather seemed to work out of the “creative heart” […

I have been a regular attendee to materia for the last three or four years, since the Research (now Focal) Unit relaunched its activity in 2017. As a student not previously engaged in (new) materialist approaches, materia has provided me with a unique space for in depth exploration of related lines of investigation and for bringing anthropocentric thinking to my own research.

Laura MenéndezPhD Candidate - Iberian and Latin American Cultures

So far, materia events have been some of the most interesting and engaging conversations I’ve experienced at Stanford […] It’s my first year, so I’m a little bit shy and just trying to get through my coursework, but I hope I’ll be able to become a more involved participant with materia over the next few years.

Matthew GilbertPhD Student - Department of Music

materia has allowed me to approach post-anthropocentric thought for the first time, not only from a literary or philosophical perspective but also from an artistic and material one. In this sense, materia gave me the opportunity to attend fascinating talks […] After my attendance I feel more prepared to understand material cultures from multiple and productive perspectives.

Òscar FerrerPhD Student - Iberian and Latin American Cultures