May 4, 2018
Regarding Das Terrestrische Manifest
- 19:00 to 21:00
- Anthropocene Lectures
- Dept. I
- Bruno Latour
Abstract
At the center of current political storms is the issue of climate change, suggests sociologist and epistemologist Bruno Latour. He reflects on current geopolitical conditions while underlining their intricate link to injustice and nationalist egoisms. In his Anthropocene Lecture he reflects on how we might gain ground again in this vexing situation.
In his upcoming book Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime (German Translation: Suhrkamp Verlag 2018), Latour considers the ecological crisis of the Anthropocene as a fundamental crisis of modernity—a modernity built on abstract assumptions and detached from its material constraints. The political anomalies of the present day make clear that any response to this crisis gives birth to unholy alliances against the real problem: finding another way to live on this Earth. While deregulation carelessly advances into a hypermodernism incapable of dealing with an increasing human population, a regressive flight into nationalist imaginations is equally problematic. As a counterpoint, Latour advocates both communion and world-relatedness. Following his lecture, Latour discusses his concept of a “terrestrial” politics that incorporates the ecological conditions of human existence with Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).
Contact and Registration
The Anthropocene Lectures are open to the public. No registration is required. For further information please see the HKW website.
About This Series
The Anthropocene—the geological epoch of humanity—has established itself as a key concept within a wider scientific and social discourse. In the midst of the dramatic and destabilizing changes to the basic conditions for life on our planet, new epistemic potentials for human action upon the Earth are to be explored.
In the framework of the Anthropocene Lecture series, a number of distinguished speakers accentuating the Anthropocene debate are invited to respond to a topic that will be a central challenge for many generations to come. The lectures take place at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), and the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam.