Thinking the Anthropocene

International conference with worldwide experts including keynote speakers Peter SLOTERDIJK, Professor, University of Art and Design, Karlsruhe; Clive HAMILTON, Professor, CAPPE, Charles Sturt University and University of Melbourne; Bruno LATOUR, Professor, Sciences Po; WILL STEFFEN, Executive Director, Climate Change Institute, Australian National University

 

 

If humankind now rivals the great forces of nature in its impact on the Earth system – so that the history of the Earth and the history of humans have converged – the Enlightenment foundations of the social sciences and humanities are called into question. The conception of the natural world on which sociology, political science, history, law, economics and philosophy rest – that of an inert backdrop to the drama of human affairs – is increasingly difficult to defend. And in an epoch in which “Gaia” has been reawakened,the “social-only” conceptions of autonomy, agency, freedom and reflexivity that define modernity, and the idea of the human on which these disciplines have been constructed,must be rethought.

This conference is designed to beginthe rethinking of the social sciences and humanities demanded by the arrival of the new geological epoch, the “Age of Humans”. It will attempt to open new vistas by drawing together scholars withan intuition that something fundamental has shifted.

 

Programme (November 14th) :

14.45-15.00    Welcome address and presentation of the Environmental Humanities programme

15.00-15.15    Presentation of the conference
Christophe BONNEUIL, François GEMENNE, Clive HAMILTON

15.15-16.15 : Keynote lecture: Will STEFFEN, Executive Director, Climate Change Institute, Australian National University

The Anthropocene. Living in a new geological epoch

Chair : Valérie MASSON-DELMOTTE, CEA Senior scientist, LSCE

 

16.15-17.30    Which (hi)stories for the Anthropocene?
Earth system scientists tell us that the earth has entered into a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, born perhaps two centuries ago with the industrial revolution powered by burning fossil fuels. How do we tell ourselves this story of the human species becoming a geological force? Who is the «we» that transformed the atmosphere, the biosphere, and even the lithosphere? Are the categories of race, class and gender to be replaced by the human species as the object of history? Are we moving from a “simple modernity” in which we did not think enough about the environmental impact of human technical and industrial actions, to a new more reflexive modernity? Or should we abandon this progressive narrative and rather revisit the environmental reflexivities of the past, understand how early warnings may have been silenced so as to disinhibit the Moderns? How can historians rethink time and historicity when historical time has merged with the deep time of the Earth?

 

– Christophe BONNEUIL, CNRS Research Fellow, Centre Alexandre Koyré, EHESS
A time for stories. Anthropocene, the Earth, History, and us.

– Alf HORNBORG, Professor, Human Ecology Division, Lund University
Let Us Not Throw Out Power with the Bathwater: Rescuing the Social in Post-Cartesian Understandings of the Biosphere

– Jean-Baptiste FRESSOZ, CNRS Research Fellow, Centre Alexandre Koyré, EHESS
Entering the Anthropocene knowingly. Six grammars of environmental reflexivity around 1800

– Chair: Grégory QUENET, Professor, University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines

 

18.00-19.15    Political futures: collapse, violence and democracy in the Anthropocene
Will climatic and ecological emergencies and resource penury lead to authoritarian political regimes? Or can scarcity and transition enhance strong democracy at local and global levels? How can we rethink democracy while avoiding externalizing its material basis? How can we compose a common world that includes the non-human elements of Gaia?How can we reconcile the timescales of the planet with the political timescales of decision-making? Can utopian political visions survive in the Anthropocene, or will the imperatives of survival render all yearning for total liberation, indefeasible freedom and universal justice to be the naïve dreams of modernity? How can we explain that our societies know about the global ecological crisis but keep nevertheless locked in a politics of unsustainability?

 

– Ingolfur BLUHDORN, Reader in Politics and Political Sociology, Bath University
The Sustainability of Democracy: Does the Anthropocene represent a challenge to democratic governance?

– Luc SEMAL, Research fellow, CERAPS, Institute for Political Studies, Lille

Anthropocene and green political theory: constraints and perspectives for post-growth democraties

– Yves COCHET, Member of the European Parliament, Former Minister of the Environment
Local Simple States

– Chair: François GEMENNE, Associate expert, CERI-Sciences Po; Research fellow, UVSQ / ULg

 

19.15-20.45    Keynote lecture: Peter SLOTERDIJK, Professor, University of Art and Design, Karlsruhe

Discussants:
– Clive HAMILTON, Professor, CAPPE, Charles Sturt University
– Bruno LATOUR, Professor, Sciences Po

 

 

An international conference convened by Christophe Bonneuil (Centre Alexandre Koyré, CNRS & EHESS), François Gemenne (UVSQ / Sciences Po) and Clive Hamilton (Charles Sturt University)
Jointly organised by Sciences Po, EHESS (Centre Alexandre Koyré), the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, the National Museum of Natural History and the Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy.
With the support of : Presses de Sciences Po, Editions du Seuil and Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain