In July 2025, SPONT hosted its first annual conference on the theme of “spontaneity” at University College London. Participants included Emily McTernan (University College London), Pablo Fernandez Velasco (University of Stirling), Karl Schafer (University of Texas), Tom Whyman (University of Liverpool), Ting Fung Ho (Duke University), Elena Holmgren (University of British Columbia), Brian O’Connor (University College Dublin), Eric Yang (Santa Clara University), Xiaochen Zhao (Independent Scholar), Amin Ebrahimi Afrouzi (UCLA), David Chandler (UCL), Ayesha Chakravarti (UCL), Isabel Herburger (Rutgers), Elizabeth Holt (UCL), Kirstine la Cour (UCL), Ethan Nowak (Stanford) and Charles Petersen (Stanford).
Summer Workshop 2025: Spontaneity
University College London 4th-5th July
Emily McTernan (University College London) – ‘Don’t Google me: Freedom, Spontaneity, and the Right to an Open Future’
Pablo Fernandez Velasco (University of Stirling) – ‘The Aesthetics of Being Lost: Spontaneous Freedom and Environmental Experience’
Karl Schafer (University of Texas) ‘The Principle of Insufficient Reason and the Possibility of Freedom’
Tom Whyman (University of Liverpool) – ‘Fanon, Violence, and Spontaneous Freedom’
Ting Fung Ho (Duke University) ‘Spontaneous Freedom in Perception: Mindfulness Beyond Categorization’
Elena Holmgren (University of British Columbia) ‘Group Flow as Spontaneous Collective Agency: A Phenomenological Account’
Brian O’Connor (University College Dublin) – ‘Idleness as Spontaneity without Autonomy’
Eric Yang (Santa Clara University) ‘Ritual and Spontaneity’
Xiaochen Zhao (Independent Scholar) ‘Freedom as Ontological Spontaneity: Heidegger’s Aesthetic-Phenomenological Recasting of Kant’
With comments from Amin Ebrahimi Afrouzi (UCLA), David Chandler (UCL), Ayesha Chakravarti (UCL), Isabel Herburger (Rutgers), Elizabeth Holt (UCL), Kirstine la Cour (UCL), Ethan Nowak (Stanford) and Charles Petersen (Stanford)
The Spontaneity of Freedom 