A Retreat to Build the New Political Subject

Applications are now open for the PSSSR's inaugural flagship retreat: The Retreat of the Left: Building the New Political Subject. Hosted by Catherine Liu, with seminars led by Neil Gong and Mark Andrejevic, the retreat convenes at Campbell House Inn in Twentynine Palms, California, December 8–13, 2026. The PSSSR is covering all costs excluding flights.

December 8–13, 2026 | 29 Palms, California

At the PSSSR, we are organizing a Retreat of the Left to provide a convivial environment in which to do serious intellectual work, engaging in the exploration of theoretical and political issues that are not addressed in other spaces. Our goal is to build a new political subject: one that is resilient and clear-eyed in the face of our violent and irrational political present. Further, we offer this retreat to thinkers who we believe will constitute a new intelligentsia, one committed to amity, integrity, and truth-seeking in ideology critique.

Because of professional and social media surveillance, neither academia nor legacy media are not capable of cultivating the kind of rigorous critique we so desperately need.

PSSSR’s Inaugural Flagship Retreat takes advantage of the beauty and remoteness of California’s High Desert, inviting participants to spend six days away from institutional and social media scrutiny in order to build strong intellectual and social bonds in a stunning natural environment.

Seminar leaders Catherine Liu, Neil Gong and Mark Andrejevic will join a cohort of people from various professions. This is not a performance of credentials, but a forum for understanding the current political landscape and building a shared strategy of resistance.

The PSSSR team is finalizing selection criteria and the application process, but the standard is already set for whom the School primarily serves: people without—or with limited access to—elite institutional networks. Not those fluent in citing them..

Dates / Location: December 8–13, 2026. Campbell House Inn and the 29 Palms Inn, just outside Joshua Tree National Park.

Applications open: 10am PDT, August 10. Apply online at psssr.org/retreat. Deadline for applications: 5pm PDT, September 15.

Apply to Attend

Support

This retreat is only possible because of the generosity of our supporters. Every donation helps create the time, space, and community needed for serious intellectual work. If you value the PSSSR’s mission, please consider supporting the Retreat with a donation.

Catherine Liu and the Palm Springs School for Social Research are opening applications for the PSSSR Emerging Writers Fund.

Intellectual life should not be restricted to those with access to elite institutions. We are particularly interested in writers with:

• Working-class backgrounds

• Barriers arising from disability or significant caring responsibilities

• Precarious or informal employment

• A lack of formal university credentials

• Other circumstances that have limited opportunities for sustained intellectual support and engagement

To build a new political subject, we need a new intellectual culture. That culture has to include the writers gatekeeping has already left out.

The Award
The Fund supports two writers on ambitious non-fiction projects, open to a wide range of topics. It runs as a six-month incubator, September through February. Each recipient receives a $2,000 grant, fully disbursed on completion of a 3,500-word project, plus monthly editorial and professional development with development editors Aimee Walleston and Tara Heffernan, and one hour-long development meeting with Catherine Liu. Completed projects will be considered for digital publication on platforms including the CLiuAnon Substack, read by more than 15,000 subscribers.

How to apply

• A 300-word personal statement on your goals and achievements

• A 1,000-word writing sample, with title and any prior publication history

• One character reference — name, email, and phone

Apply Here

Ten applicants advance to a final round, at which point PSSSR contacts references. Applications close 5pm PDT, August 20, 2026.

PSSSR is a 501(c)(3) registered non-profit.You can support us at psssr.org/support. Follow PSSSR: LinkedIn | Instagram | X

2026 Inaugural Winners

The PSSSR Awards Palm Springs School For Social Research Awards platform figures whose polemical or unorthodox work has achieved notable circulation and influence in contemporary discourse, work that has largely outpaced the gatekeeping mechanisms of traditional institutions and media as they struggle to keep pace with rapid cultural and political change.

The inaugural PSSSR Awards were presented June 13, 2026, in Frankfurt, as part of the school’s public launch. This year’s winners were selected across two categories.

Best Monograph

Jennifer C. Pan, for Selling Social Justice: Why the Rich Love Antiracism (Verso, 2025)

Best Social Media Content

Brad Troemel, The Reports

Program note

The PSSSR Awards will run annually. Subscribe to Substack to be the first to hear about future nominations, categories, and winners.

PSSSR is pleased to support the work of Joshua Citarella’s Doomscroll with the launch of Doomscroll Dialogues, a new roundtable version of the show with two or more guests in discussion

Doomscroll Dialogues is a new format that creates space for the kind of sustained, substantive conversations the PSSSR exists to foster. An international educational initiative devoted to revitalising critical theory as a serious, public, and politically consequential intellectual practice, PSSSR is committed to making theoretical, historical, class-based critique accessible to everyone.

Series Launch: Doomscroll Dialogues 01

This inaugural episode features Catherine Liu and Freddie deBoer on what Freddie calls “the gentrification of disability,” and how an increasingly uneven society distorts the meaning of mental health, disability, and who really suffers. Both guests have books out this fall: Catherine Liu is the author of Traumatized: The New Politics of Public Suffering (Verso Books), and Freddie deBoer is the author of All in Your Head: Illness as Identity, Trauma as Fashion, and the Desire to be Disordered (Simon & Schuster).

Part Two of the conversation is available for Paid Subscribers to Doomscroll and Catherine Liu.

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The Palm Springs School for Social Research is an international educational initiative devoted to revitalising critical theory as a serious, public, and politically consequential intellectual practice.

In an era marked by political instability, anti-intellectualism, and ideological exhaustion, neither liberal nor conservative institutions offer convincing accounts of the economic, cultural, and social crises shaping contemporary life. Older political frameworks persist in hollowed-out, zombified, or parodic forms.

Intellectual life and work should not be limited to those who have access to elite institutions and the networks and credentials they offer. We all experience powerlessness, alienation, and coercion. Against a culture industry dominated by decayed ideological dogma, the PSSSR promotes collective thinking grounded in historical materialist reason.

What is the Social of Socialism?
Frankfurt, June 12–13, 2026

The PSSSR launches with a two-day conference asking: What is the Social of Socialism? — with papers by Vivek Chibber, Roger Lancaster, Lee Jones, Catherine Liu, George Hoare, and Tara Heffernan. Taking place in Frankfurt, but not in the University, the inaugural conference pays tribute to the place where critical theory was forged while commemorating its marginality to German academia. The in-person event is sold out, but followers can register via this link and pay-what-you-like to live stream the event.

The PSSSR facilitates a pro-social environment. Each session offers ample time for questions and discussion. As we are only able to host approximately forty guests at the live event, the conference will also be livestreamed for registered participants.

As part of the launch, we will present the first annual PSSSR Awards, honoring critical and genuinely challenging public-facing work that has, despite its influence and reach, largely outpaced the gatekeeping mechanisms of traditional institutions.

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The Frankfurt launch marks the beginning of the PSSSR’s public activity. Further events, publications, and research programs follow throughout 2026 and beyond.

Register now: Live Event Support the school: psssr.org/support Press & interview requests: media@psssr.org

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The Palm Springs School for Social Research is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization (EIN: 39-3113787).