Philosophy Portal is coming to Wake Festival!
Wake 2025
APRIL 27TH - MAY 1ST 2025
Located in the cultural heart of Belfast, Wake is a five-day transgressive festival that mixes the best in incendiary intellectual exploration with underground art, music, magic, comedy, tours and talks to forge an experience that embodies the destabilizing essence of pyrotheology.
Named after the Irish funeral ritual, Wake is a pop-up community that creates a space for radical ideas and personal rupture. It brings together a ragtag collection of dissidents, heretics, fools and fundamentalists from all over the globe. People who want to spend five days forging friendships, bidding farewell to old gods, and learning how to affirm life in all its dirt and depth.
The Portal @ Wake
APRIL 27TH - MAY 1ST 2025
This year Wake will be organising in parallel with Philosophy Portal, an online educational platform dedicated to teaching the foundations of modern philosophy as well as bringing philosophy to life in our event space thinking community.
The Philosophy Portal side of Wake will be focused on hosting a series of formal presentations, discussion groups, workshops, and interactive thinking spaces designed to develop the concept of “Christian Atheism”, as well as connect this concept to thinking the future of “the body”, “creative communities”, and “network dynamics”.
Throughout the event there will be guest speakers, lecturers, facilitators who have not only been studying and working with the concept of Christian Atheism, but have also been collectively cultivating a style of community mind immersed in philosophical reflection, and oriented towards becoming the forms of subjectivity that are needed to move spirit forward after the Death of God.
Philosophy Portal x Wake
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Cadell Last
Creator/founder of Philosophy Portal
Last is the creator/founder of Philosophy Portal, the author of Global Brain Singularity, Systems & Subjects, as well as the co-editor of Enter the Alien, Abyssal Arrows, and Logic for the Global Brain. He has a background in anthropology, history, complexity science, philosophy and psychoanalysis; he teaches dialectical thinking at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, the foundations of modern philosophy and psychoanalysis at Philosophy Portal, as well as leads the The Portal live event space.
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Peter Rollins
Pyrotheologist, Host of Wake
Rollins is a Northern Irish writer, public speaker, philosopher, producer and theologian. Drawing from various strands of continental philosophy, Rollins' early work operated broadly from within of apophatic theology, while his more recent books move toward the theory and practice of death of God theology. In these books he develops a "religionless" interpretation of Christianity called pyrotheology, which views faith as a particular way of engaging with the world rather than a set of beliefs about the world.
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Barry Taylor
Radical Theologian, Theology Chair @ GCAS
Taylor’s work focuses on the intersections between religion, theology and culture, with a particular emphasis on the impact and interplay of contemporary digital life on religion and belief (particularly Western Christianity). He is particularly interested in religion where it is least obvious and in cultural clinamens- the behaviour and phenomena that escape our categorizing and thus provide opportunity for re-framing how we think and approach life. He works with GCAS as the Chair of the Theology department.
Discussions
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Alfie Bown
Lecturer in Digital Media Culture and Technology at University of London, founder/creator of Everyday Analysis, author of Post-Comedy and The Playstation Dreamworld
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Helen Rollins
Author, filmmaker, writes on film and analysis, director of A Guide for Making Love, producer of Better Angels: The Gospel According to Tammy Faye, author of Psychocinema
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Jim Palmer
Public theologian, and religious trauma counsellor, writer at Deconstructionology, founder of the Center for Non-Religious Spirituality, and author of Inner Anarchy, Divine Nobodies
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Michel Bauwens
Belgian theorist in emerging field of peer-to-peer (P2P), a writer and speaker on technology, culture, and business, founder of the P2P Foundation, a global organisation exploring open collaboration
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Thomas Hamelryck
Researcher in bioinformatics, Bayesian statistics, probabilistic machine learning, as well as theorist of French anthropologist Rene Girard to study interplay of human nature and digital networks
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Mark Gerard Murphy
Thinker, teacher, lecturer with a PhD and Post-Doctoral degree in Theology and Philosophical Theology focused on ethics, spirituality, and mental health, author of The Direction of Desire
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Cleo Kearns
Scholar, teacher, writer in philosophy, religion, and anthropology, working on continental philosophy of Abrahamic scriptures, author of The Virgin Mary, Monotheism and Sacrifice
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Eliot Rosenstock
Psychotherapist focused on philosophy and psychoanalysis for individual and group treatment settings, author of Žižek in the Clinic, The Ego and Its Hyperstate
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Kirsty Rosenstock
Artist, writer, creator, apprentice in ideological exorcism
All-Access Ticket
Discounts to The Portal @ Wake are for students of the Christian Atheism course, or members of The Portal.
Key Information
What are the dates?
Wake starts on the evening of 27 April and ends at midnight on 1st May. The main events for The Portal @ Wake will be run from 28 April through the 1st of May.
What should I expect?
This is a boutique festival carefully crafted to help inspire you, challenge you, and enrich your experience of life. Peter Rollins will be there speaking, facilitating discussions and answering questions, as well as curating the other content, on the Wake side. On the Philosophy Portal side Cadell Last will be organising the conference, discussion series, workshops, and other events designed to further develop the concept of Christian Atheism and connect it to the future of community and network dynamics.
Where should I stay?
A brand new hotel has opened up right next door to where Wake happens. It’s called The Foundry and is a very cool, mid-budget spot located on the best street in the city. I’d highly recommend you grab that spot. But there’s loads of other great places, from the basic to the luxurious. And all at very reasonable prices. You can look for an apartment in the Cathedral Quarter (St. Annes Square is a great spot), or book into one of the many local hotels. My other recommendations are:
An apartment in the Cathedral Quarter (St. Annes Square is a great spot)
The Premier Inn or the Ramada Encore for budget options (there are a few Premier Inns, so make sure you're booking the one located in the Cathedral Quarter)
Bullitt for a very stylish and cool mid-price option
The Merchant, if you want to make your stay that little bit more special
Should I extend my stay?
Absolutely. Wake is timed so that it ends right when some of the biggest and best events of the city begin. These are Hit the North (a Street Art event), the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival and the Festival of Fools.
What happens if I pay but can’t go?
Because we base the program directly on the budget, we are unable to offer refunds, however we can offer credit toward future Wake festivals.
What are my transportation options?
The closest airport is the George Best City (BHD). It’s a 5 minute bus or taxi ride into the city (both can be found right on the doorstep of the airport (Uber also operates in Belfast). The other local airport is Belfast International (BFS). There is a bus at the airport that takes you directly into the city. From there, you can walk to the area where everything takes place. Dublin airport (DUB) is also a great option as flights there are often cheaper. It’s just under 2 hours from Belfast and there’s a bus outside the exit that will take you up (some of the buses don't take credit cards, so buy your ticket in advance or use either Euros or Sterling).
What’s included?
Included in the ticket price is admission to everything across the five days of The Portal @ Wake. Travel, accommodations, food is organised individually.
Contact.
If you are interested in attending The Portal @ Wake and have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me directly.
Christian Atheism Dialogues
If you are interested in learning more about the leaders of this event and some of the conversation topics that we seek to explore deeper at the event itself, you can check out a few videos hosted by Cadell Last with Peter Rollins and Barry Taylor on Christianity, Religion, God and more.