The Posthumanities Hub round-table workshop On “Creative with concepts”
Speakers: Prof. Nanna Verhoeff (Utrecht University), Prof. Iris van der Tuin (Utrecht University), Dr Janna Holmstedt (Sweden’s Historical Museums), Prof. Christina Fredengren (Uppsala University), Prof. Paola Ruiz Moltó (Universitat Jaume) & Prof. Cecilia Åsberg (LiU) with friends.
11th May, 10:15-12:00 CEST, Linköping University, Temahuset, Temcas.
Engaging with what concepts can do, we explore in this experimental round-table workshop what happens in the arts and creative humanities when “theory words” (concepts) work across different research practices. We move through a set of concepts, like, “assembling”, “cartography”, “curation”, “dirt”, “following”, “micrology”, “unlearning” and “wonder” (all from Iris van der Tuin & Nanna Verhoeff’s (2022) Critical Concepts for the Creative Humanities, see below how to download it!). Such concepts are put to work differently across the invited speakers’ various research projects. Come meet artistic research on soil and sustainability; museum ecologies and heritage research on past and future waste sites of the present Antropocene; imaginative teacher education with art, science and tiny, tiny critters, as well as other forms of blue/ environmental/ feminist/ more-than-human and creative humanities.
On Wednesday 24 May we reconvene agian for group meeting.
On the agenda: to continue our check in with new research group members and hear artist in residence prof Paola Molto Ruiz present her work. Excited to see you all in this amazing constellation!
We are thrilled to hold several local, hybrid and online events, where you can tune in and engage with the work of Prof. MacCormack. One of these events is the Tema Genus Higher Seminar taking place on 29th March 2023 at 13:15-15:00 CEST.
Occult Ahuman Pedagogy: Death to the Anthropocene by Witchcraft with Prof. Patricia MacCormack (Anglia Ruskin University, UK)
If you wish to attend remotely, please register at http://bit.ly/3ZRCurg or follow this QR:
Bio: Patricia MacCormack is Professor of Continental Philosophy at Anglia Ruskin University Cambridge. She has published extensively on philosophy, feminism, queer and monster theory, animal abolitionist activism, ethics, art and horror cinema. She is the author of Cinesexuality (Routledge 2008) and Posthuman Ethics (Routledge 2012) and the editor of The Animal Catalyst (Bloomsbury 2014), Deleuze and the Animal (EUP 2017), Deleuze and the Schizoanalysis of Cinema (Continuum 2008) and Ecosophical Aesthetics (Bloomsbury 2018). Her new book is The Ahuman Manifesto: Activisms for the End of the Anthropocene. She is currently a Leverhulme Research Fellow researching death activism.
Post-Doc position on frictions between data infrastructure and energy grids
We are currently looking to hire a post-doc to join our new project “Megabytes vs Megawatts: Understanding Infrastructural Frictions between Data Centers and Energy Grids for Sustainable Digitalization” funded by the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation.
The project aims to study societal conflicts and sociotechnical imaginaries around “sustainability” that arise at the intersection between energy-intense data infrastructure and energy grids in transition. The project draws upon interdisciplinary perspectives, combining critical studies of media infrastructures; environmental media; anthropology, and science and technology studies (STS). The postdoc is expected to conduct critical qualitative, empirical research, focusing on the interplay between data infrastructure and energy in relation to sustainability. Candidates with a wide variety of backgrounds are eligible for the position, including media studies, science and technology studies, anthropology, sociology, human geography, political science or related fields.
The post-doc position is full time, for 2 years with the possibility of extension up to a total maximum of three years. A certain amount of teaching will be part of the post-doc duties, up to a maximum of 20% of working hours.
VENUE: ARBETETS MUSEUM (THE MUSEUM OF WORK), NORRKÖPING
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:
Prof. Patricia MacCormack (Anglia Ruskin University, UK)
Prof. Em. Nina Lykke (Linköping University, SE/Aarhus University, DK)
SPEAKERS:
Dr Evelien Geerts (University of Birmingham, UK)
Prof. Christina Fredengren (Uppsala University, SE)
Dr Tara Mehrabi & Dr Wibke Straube (Karlstad University, SE)
Dr Marietta Radomska (Linköping University, SE)
In the Anthropocene, the epoch of climate change and environmental destruction that render certain habitats unliveable and induce socio-economic inequalities and shared ‘more-than-human’ vulnerabilities, death and loss become urgent environmental concerns. As climate scientists indicate, in order to achieve UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), a much more radical transformative action is needed from all stakeholders: governments, the private sector, communities and individuals (Höhne et al. 2020).
Simultaneously, planetary environmental disruption, contributing to the mortality of humans and nonhumans, destruction of entire ecosystems, the sixth mass extinction, both abrupt and ‘slow’ violence (Nixon 2011), evoke feelings of anxiety, anger and grief, manifested in popular-scientific and cultural narratives, art, and activism. These feelings are not always openly acknowledged or accepted in society; and the ecological, more-than-human dimensions of death have traditionally been underplayed in public debates. Yet, what we need now – more than ever – is the systematic problematisation of the planetary-scale mechanisms of annihilation of the more-than-human world in their philosophical, socio-cultural, ethico-political and very material dimensions. Only then will it be possible to talk about the issues of responsibility, accountability and care for more-than-human worlds (Radomska & Lykke 2022).
Taking its starting point in critically investigating and challenging conventional normativities, assumptions and expectations surrounding issues of death, dying and mourning in the contemporary world (Radomska, Meharbi & Lykke 2020; https://queerdeathstudies.net/), this interdisciplinary symposium zooms in on more-than-human ecologies of death, dying, grief and mourning across spatial and temporal scales.
The participation in the symposium is free of charge, but we have a limited number of seats. If you wish to take part in the event, please, fill out the form: https://forms.office.com/e/Yb4qXpyVtX
Registration deadline: 15th March 2023 or until the event is fully booked.
NB! In case you register and it turns out you can no longer participate, please let us know by sending an email to: ecobioartlab[at]liu.se . In this way we may be able to let in anyone who may be on the waiting list.
