Lecture and workshop: The Anthropocene as a consequence of modernity: rethinking sustainability

This event is co-sponsored by the Center for Historical Studies (CHS) and Centre for International Relations Research (CIRR)

Professor Eric Macé
UMR Centre Emile-Durkheim
Université de Bordeaux

The lecture is open to everyone, there will also be a link to join online. It will be followed by a workshop for early career academics (Research Master, PhD students and Postdocs). The places are limited. So, please register workshop via this link before Monday 14 April: https://forms.gle/ogmcv9xLgiWLqZux7

Lecture: The Anthropocene is not a new geoplanetary era but the consequence and the final stage of modernity

Time: 13.00-14.00h
Location: Room 0.1 in OBS24 Calmershuis and online via Google Meet

The Anthropocene is a completely unprecedented period in the history of humanity: the global disruption of the climate and biodiversity does not have a natural cause as has been the case since the birth of planet Earth, but is caused by unsustainable and yet exponential anthropogenic pressure. In this sense, the Anthropocene marks a break with modern thought: whereas modernity saw itself as an emancipation of humanity from its original vulnerability in its relationship to disease, food and the climate, the Anthropocene is, on the contrary, a “return of force” of nature and the exposure of humanity to an even greater global and growing vulnerability. Since the Anthropocene is thus defined as the consequence of modernity rather than the entry into a new geoplanetary era, the question arises as to whether humans have the capacity to deviate from this unsustainable trajectory, which is thus threatened with collapse.

Workshop: Understanding how the Anthropocene is disrupting our modern categories of perception of reality

Time: 14.30-16.00h
Location: Room 0.1 in OBS24 Calmershuis

This interdisciplinary workshop based on an exercise in historical anthropology aims to better understand the cognitive dimension, in cultural representations as well as in scientific practices, of two historical bifurcations of our relationship to reality: firstly, “what modernity does” to pre-modern representations and categories, and secondly, “what the Anthropocene does” to modern representations and categories (of which we are the heirs). This exercise is organized around 5 categories of the relationship to reality: time, space, nature, society, risk. After a short general introduction, the participants form 5 groups, each group is dedicated to a category and must fill in 3 columns, for example for time: what relationship to time in pre-modern cultures? / what new relationship to time instituted and imposed by modernity? / what new relationship to time imposed by the Anthropocene context?

By participating in this workshop, you will be able to integrate the new parameters of our relationship with the reality of the world into your research questions. Just as the state of war disrupts the ways of thinking specific to the state of peace, the anthropocene changes modify reality and invite us to modify our way of thinking.

If you have any questions, please get in touch with Yuliya Hilevych: y.o.hilevych rug.nl