"A Politics of Shredding: The Far-Right’s Approach to Biodiversity and Environmental Disaster"
Guest Lecture by Dr. Esther Edelmann & Prof. Frans-Willem Korsten
- https://www.uni-giessen.de/de/ueber-uns/veranstaltungen/vortraege/politics-of-shredding
- "A Politics of Shredding: The Far-Right’s Approach to Biodiversity and Environmental Disaster"
- 2024-07-17T16:00:00+02:00
- 2024-07-17T18:00:00+02:00
- Guest Lecture by Dr. Esther Edelmann & Prof. Frans-Willem Korsten
17.07.2024 von 16:00 bis 18:00 (Europe/Berlin / UTC200)
Philosophikum I, Hörsaal A3 & via Zoom
This talk takes its cue from a meme-phrase that all measures to protect nature and the environment should be “subject to the shredder” – a meme that began to travel since 2016. For far-right parties, such as the Republican Party under Trump or the Dutch Party for Freedom under Geert Wilders, international agreements aimed at preserving biodiversity and the protection of life and environments must be shredded, or “cut to pieces”. Using Trumpism as the starting point for our analysis, we intend to describe systemic factors that go beyond the mere focus on individual political figures and their national contexts. Catastrophic climate change, alongside the rise of an equally catastrophic political climate in the face of environmental disaster, can only be understood through a broad spectrum of critical concepts that shed light on the culture and politics of shredding. We argue that the far-right is following a similar logic throughout the West with a politico-ecological agenda that serves the private interest of agricultural and extraction industries, ranging from commodity farmers and meat corporations to multinational oil companies. We contend that a solution to their agenda of collective destruction cannot be found within the current political system. The far-right acts as a quasi-, or no sot quasi, fascist instrument to safeguard the private interests of unsustainable industries.
Zoom link:
https://uni-giessen.zoom-x.de/j/63334806325?pwd=bUJhU2lTd3NwYVcvcUJ3c1lvbFVOQT09