SOMMER-VORTRÄGE IM IKMZ

Was bieten die Umwelthumanwissenschaften?

Im folgenden Sommersemester lädt das Fachgebiet Allgemeine Technikwissenschaft ein zu Diskussionen über Themen, Probleme und Ansätze der Umwelthumanwissenschaften. In drei Vorträgen wird es um Stoffgeschichten und eine geisteswissenschaftliche Perspektive auf Energie gehen, um Begriffe und Modelle von Nachhaltigkeit, um die deutsche Energiewende und Postwachstumskonzepte, um urbanes Gärtnern und essbare Städte, überhaupt um Existenzweisen im Anthropozän.

What about environmental humanities?

In the coming summer semester term, the chair of technoscience studies offers three public lectures dealing with topics, issues and approaches from the environmental humanities. There will be talks about energy and matter from a humanities perspective, about concepts and models of sustainability, about the German energy transition and post-growth concepts, about urban gardening and edible cities, about the human condition in the age of the Anthropocene.

12.4.2018: Jens Soetgen

ENERGY, MATTER AND SUSTAINABILITY AS TOPICS OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES

Generally, energy and matter are seen as being topics of the natural sciences, one could even argue that they create their identity. In contrast, this presentation will show that research on energy and matter in humanity studies and social sciences is of vital importance for our understanding of the ecological crisis. What is more, this type of knowledge is not only significant to a better understanding of our environments and their transformations, but also stimulates new ways of acting. Different approaches will be presented to underline these claims, pertinent topics are humanity studies of energy systems and energy transitions, stories about materials ("Stoffgeschichten"), and the history of sustainability.

JENS SOENTGEN is a philosopher and chemist, serving as academic director of the Environmental Science Center at University of Augsburg. Since 2016 he is also Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Memorial University in St. John’s, Canada. Since 2012 he co-edits the journal GAIA Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society. Soentgen published widely on environmental philosophy, the history and theory of chemistry as well as on the specifics of individual materials, both for the scientific community and for general readers. Among his price-winning books are Von den Sternen bis zum Tau (From stars to dew), 2011, and Wie man mit dem Feuer philosophiert (How to philosophize with fire), 2014. Upcoming are the volumes Ökologie der Angst (Ecology of fear) and Konfliktstoffe (matters of conflict). In his work he combines the expertise of the chemist, experimenter and thinker with connoisseurship of even remote areas of the cultural and intellectual history of alchemy and the philosophy of materials both in the industrialized north and in the global south.

Please note the following dates:
14. Juni 2018, 15:30-17:00 Uhr
Ulrich Petschow

tba

5. Juli 2018 16:30-18:00 Uhr
Astrid Schwarz
Überlegungen zur gegenseitigen Hervorbringung von Umwelt und technischen Objekten