• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
Through the Portal Conference

Through the Portal Conference

  • About
  • Schedule
    • Topics
    • Speakers
  • Logistics
  • Media
  • FAQ

TOPICS

To view topic details & daily conference agendas, please register using the link below.

Register Now

Day 1: September 20

Fascism, Climate Change, and Shifts in Racial Capitalism

An exploration of the looming threat of authoritarianism, including how real it is and what its implications are.
Read More

Imagining Alternative Economies & Cultures, Building Better, Sustainable, and Accessible Futures

Do cooperatives, solidarity economies, mutual aid networks, and demands for housing as a human right prefigure the future?
Read More

What time is it on the clock of the world?

What trends are emerging, and how can grassroots movements build international solidarity and power?
Read More

Day 2: September 21

Censored Curricula and Carceral Campuses: What is a Democratic Response?

What is education for? Who deserves quality education? What should be taught, and who decides?
Read More

Challenges and Imperatives of Building Mass Movements And Coalitions

What is the role and power of organized labor to the larger social justice movement? What’s next?
Read More

Feminists On The Frontlines: What Does a Feminist Politic of Transformative Change Look Like?

What has been the backlash and why is it so important to forge intersectional feminist frameworks in our efforts to change the world?
Read More

Implications of Gaza For the World

A reflection on the significance of the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the upsurge in protests on U.S. campuses and around the world.
Read More

Inside/Outside: Governing Power, Municipalism and Radical Democracy

What does accountability look like in systems not designed for it, and what systemic changes are needed for a real and robust democracy?
Read More

Nothing Advances Without Art

How art serves social movements and touches, provokes, inspires, and teaches on levels that more conventional forms of organizing and scholarship cannot.
Read More

Race, Class, State Violence, and the Future and Promise of Abolition: A Decade After the 2014 Ferguson Uprising

A discussion of police, prisons, state violence, safety, and the legacies of the Ferguson protests, exploring what abolition means in 2024.
Read More

Solidarity, DeColonization, Migration, and Land

An exploration of the tactics, demands, and strategies of land and migration related to a justice agenda for the 21st century.
Read More

Speaking Out In Dangerous Times — Making Enduring Commitments

An intergenerational conversation between beloved freedom fighters who have made long-term commitments to fighting for justice in the world.
Read More

Day 3: September 22

Holding onto our Souls: Forging a Spirit of Resistance in a Love-Driven Revolution… “Only Love Can Save Us” 

Read More

The Ground on Which We Stand: An Aerial View of the Urgency of Now through the reflections of Truth-Telling Journalists

This panel will discuss why alternative media is so important and offer some behind-the-scenes reflections on what’s required to sustain it.
Read More



CONTACT US

Through the Portal 2024 is a project of the Social Justice Initiative at University of Illinois Chicago.
Copyright © 2025 · University of Illinois Chicago
Site Credits