Welcome to The Portal

The Portal is an online philosophy community building a future-oriented learning network.

Members get access to four live philosophical events every month and our entire recorded history.

Origins

The Portal grew out of the first two years (2022, 2023) of course work at Philosophy Portal focused on great works in continental philosophy and psychoanalytic theory. Learning the foundations of philosophy is essential, but so is creating spaces where philosophy can come to life, in both community context, and at the intersection of engaging a real network.  The Portal is the result of this double commitment: community building and network engagement.  As a result, it offers a unique and priceless educational opportunity, to both cultivate the capacity to think in community, as well as struggle in the differences between communities to generate novel connections. 

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Learn more about our courses, conferences, and anthologies below:

Courses
Conferences
Books

Our Community and History

The Portal as community has met weekly since January 2024.  Throughout our first year, the community months were organised around "meta-themes” of sexuality, community, and metaphysics, and entertained a wide variety of thinkers from the underground philosophy/theory scenes, as well as liminal web cultural scenes.  Each month a different key theoretical concept was developed (e.g. "libido”, "communism”, "self-reference”, "democracy”, "transhumanism”, “holy spirit”) in relation to and engagement with thinkers-practitioners associated with the aforementioned scenes.  As a result, our community has developed the capacity to build together, productively navigate a wide diversity of ideas and collaboratively network with a wide diversity of people. 

In our second year, 2025, we worked in more sustained month-long processes with different people and organisations.  These processes have mediated many different major identities and themes (e.g. "Integral theory”, "Marxism and politics”, "Christianity today”, “Literature and art”, "Men’s and women’s work”, "ancient philosophy”) attempting to forge connections and build opportunities for future thinking and collaboration that can birth new ways of seeing and new ways of creating together.  Throughout 2025, members also had access to the Slovenian School Reading Group focused on the works of Alenka Zupancic, Mladen Dolar, and Slavoj Zizek; the Sex and Society Sharing Circle focused on sexuality, identity, performativity, social reality, and politics; as well as the Deleuze and Analysis course developing the philosophical interconnection between the works of Gilles Deleuze and the works of Jacques Lacan, as well as demonstrating their relevant to contemporary continental philosophy.

In 2026, The Portal aims to continue building month-long processes with different people and organisations, as well as build higher order thinking and speaking spaces where these people and organisations can learn to interact at the boundaries of their own differences to find new synergies and creative connections.  We will also be entering the second years of the Slovenian School Reading Group, the second year of the Sex and Society circle, and introducing a new year long course focused on the contemporary relevance of Marxist politics.   

Learn more about our reading group, sharing circle, and recordings:

Reading Group
Sharing Circle
Recordings

Our Leaders

The Portal is also made possible by the people who lead our events.  Cadell Last is the creator and founder of Philosophy Portal, as well as the host for all core member events.  Last is responsible for organising the main member months as well as associated events, courses, and programs.  Dimitri Crooijmans is the leader of the Slovenian School Reading Group which focuses on the works of Alenka Zupancic, Mladen Dolar, and Slavoj Zizek.  Rebecca Rose Prentice is the leader of the Sex and Society Sharing Circle which focuses on sexuality, identity, performativity, social reality, and politics.  We have also started to build out a formal professorship with teachers developing the Philosophy Portal courses and curriculum.  In 2025 Prof. Terence Blake taught a year long course focused on Deleuze and Analysis, and in 2026, Prof. Chris Cutrone will be teaching a year long course focused on Marxist Politics. 

Portal Leaders

Cadell Last
Dimitri Crooijmans
Rebecca Rose Prentice

Portal Profs.

Terence Blake
Chris Cutrone

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Our Collaborators and Guests

The Portal is committed to building a real para-academic network, and the people who we host are the key to this construction. We are not only interested in engaging with thinkers in one-off events but building long-term with a variety of different individuals, groups, organisations, and projects.  The aim of this work is to actually embody an alternative style of intellectual life that is life-long, transdisciplinary, and transcendent of traditional institutional academic incentives.  The hope is that through our collaborations both members of The Portal and guests to each month of work, form an informal backbone of a para-academic network that is both global and local, virtual and physical.  In the history of our recordings, you will find figures from both the underground theory/philosophy scenes and the liminal web cultural scenes.  Below you will find the collaborators whose work can be found in the recorded history of The Portal and whose projects make the para-academic network possible.      

Portal 2024.

Portal 2025.

Portal 2026.

Endorsements From Our Guests and Collaborators:

"Cadell Last’s work and projects are of extreme significance in the times we live in. The Portal gives theory a platform it doesn’t usually get, and establish connections that one would never thought of. All this with great lucidity, intensity and dedication.” -Alenka Zupancic

“The Portal provides a needed avenue for people to learn existing theories, and just as importantly, to conceive their own. We live in a world where theory has become an existential exigency for everyone, and The Portal is responding to this situation with the appropriate urgency.” -Todd McGowan

“Today's leading-edge thinking requires the cultivation of proactive transdisciplinary spaces that negotiate between intellectual rigor & creative novelty and which can explore big-picture, post-pluralistic frontiers without succumbing to naive utopianism.  The Portal project is hitting that target more reliably than anyone else.” -Layman Pascal

“The Portal is a critical school and community characterised by deep, innovative and honest thinking, something that is becoming rarer all the time in our nearly totally commoditised world. Cadell provides a space in Philosophy Portal where a community (or better put, ‘communion’) of people can come together to share in a fraternity of ideas and, most importantly, friendship.” -Helen Rollins

"I am very proud to say that I have had the honor of collaborating with Cadell Last and teaching at Philosophy Portal. What Cadell and The Portal are doing is nothing less than resuscitating the lifeless body of education itself. If systematic education has any future at all, then it is a future opened up by the alternative framework being developed at The Portal. One goes to university in order to purchase a piece of paper — one goes to Philosophy Portal to truly philosophize.” -Michael Downs

"What The Portal offers is a gift that changes the quality of a whole life: it is not simply a product, but a horizon. I see the world differently now, and I can’t imagine where I would be without it.” -Daniel L. Garner

Members

The members of The Portal are the life blood of all the work at Philosophy Portal.  Members of The Portal comprise a wide demographic and a wide field of interests.  What unites the members of The Portal is the commitment to life-long learning in community, as well as cultivation of that skill at the edge of intersecting communities.  Members have access to four live events every month as part of our primary meeting schedule.  These events are hosted live on either Sundays or Mondays at 830pm Central European Time (CET) or 230pm Eastern Standard Time (EST) or 1130am Pacific Standard Time (PST).  Some members of The Portal attend all or most of the live events, some members of The Portal attend once a month or for a month that is specifically geared to their interests, and some members of The Portal choose primarily access the recordings (which are always uploaded one day after a live event).  All members of The Portal are given access to a mailing list where they receive updates for new live events as well as updates when the recording as been uploaded to our private portal.  On top of the four live events every month, members of The Portal get automatic access to extra projects, including sharing circles, reading groups, and even select full courses being developed by our professors.            

Endorsements From Our Members:

"The Portal is an extraordinary space that goes deep into the core of human existence. It turns philosophy into a tangible, authentic experience, offering a real and truthful exploration of life's mysteries. I highly recommend for its ability to nurture both personal exploration and professional development.” -Joris de Kelver

"The Portal is the best place to go for the real practice of Hegel’s idea of dialectical modern philosophy, as the evolution from previous modes of consciousness. Cadell engages with new thinkers and technologies seamlessly, and the additional courses are fantastic!” -Eliot and Kirsty Rosenstock

"I fell into The Portal after becoming disillusioned with the University, but still desirous of a life of Higher Learning. I now consider it my intellectual home. My thinking life is continually challenged and enriched by fellow members and their careful but critical engagement with guests and their projects” -Daniel Coughlan

"The Portal has offered me an interactive way of engaging with philosophy online. Cadell has created a shared space where ideas are worked through collectively, allowing one’s own thinking to be challenged, clarified, and deepened." -LaVonne Chantal

"The Portal has been an incredible experience for me.  The community is welcoming, intellectually stimulating, and genuinely inspiring.  Whether you're just exploring philosophical ideas or already well-versed, there’s something here for everyone." -Davide Pasti

"The Portal has been a constant source of information that has opened up a philosophical dialogue far broader than any other online community that I have experienced, and also building a space that is welcoming and accommodating no matter where one stands in their philosophical journey.” -Pae Veo

"The Portal consistently challenges and expands my thinking, placing me in direct dialogue with heterodox, cutting-edge thinkers across philosophy, theology, politics, economics, and spirituality; in an open environment, communal, free of judgment with plenty of room for discussion and reflection. It has genuinely changed my life by creating/curating a recurring space where deep, collective thought feels urgent, rewarding, and intellectually alive.” -Stefan John de Pous

"For anyone struggling to maintain a big-picture overview while delving deep, The Portal actively makes the two reinforce one another, in a way that uniquely allows thought to move from comprehension into lived engagement." -Esben Topland

Our Promise to Members

Our promise to members is to continue building the best philosophy space online, and that will include long-term commitment to our original vision, but also innovations designed to push our work further.  The bottom line: The Portal aims to be the best education and thinking space for the lowest price.  As The Portal continues to grow and build, we will aim to provide more to our members for less.  We will also continue to try and be a space that is genuinely open to real inquiry and investigation, the cultivation of a philosophical mindset, and the application of that mindset to active engagement with living people and projects required to birth a para-academic network capable of thinking the unity of the local-global, as well as the physical-digital.       

Philosophy Portal Members
€50.00
Every month
€500.00
Every year

Philosophy Portal is an online education platform opening space for the next generation of great thought, and cultivation of future philosophical mind. Philosophy Portal members get access to The Portal live event spaces, free access to courses. Couples are encouraged get a 2 for 1 deal. All Sales Final.

✓ Four live events every month + recorded history (150+ hours)
✓ Marxist Politics for Undead Millennials (live)
✓ Slovenian School Reading Group (live)
✓ Sex and Society Circle (live)
✓ Access to past Portal courses (e.g. Deleuze and Analysis)

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Home of a philosophical community building a future-oriented learning network

Continental Philosophy. Psychoanalytic Theory. Emancipatory Politics. Radical Theology.

We host four live philosophical events every month. Members get access to entire recorded history.

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