Welcome to the Panel on Planetary Thinking

The Panel on Planetary Thinking, the DFG Research Group MeDiMi (Human Rights Discourses in the Migration Society) and the Environmental Law Practitioners Seminar of the Justus Liebig University Giessen invite you to attend our upcoming Planetary Lecture.

Lecture

Kira Vinke: „Sturmnomaden“. Der Klimawandel verlangt eine neue Migrationspolitik

Time: January 26, 2023, 6-8 p.m.

Location: University main building, 3rd floor, seminar room 315.

As a result of climate change, deserts are expanding, coasts are being flooded and landslides are tearing away villages and urban districts. This further restricts the living space for people, resulting in massive climate migration. With her pioneering work "Sturmnomaden", Kira Vinke has pointed out the need for a policy that recognizes climate change and biodiversity loss as reasons for flight and addresses the issue of global migration in a new way.

Kira Vinke is the Director of the Center for Climate and Foreign Policy at the German Council on Foreign Relations and Co-chair of the German government's Advisory Council on Civilian Crisis Prevention and Peacebuilding. Her research topics include climate impacts, violent conflict, and civil crisis prevention, particularly in South Asia, the Sahel, and the Pacific. Previously, she worked as a consultant for the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) and as a consultant for the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). She is also involved in the board of trustees of World Vision Deutschland e.V., as a member of the association of the German section of Action against Hunger, and in the Development Service and Humanitarian Aid Committee of Bread for the World.

Jürgen Bast, Chair of Public Law and European Law at JLU and spokesperson for the MeDiMi research group, will open the discussion on Kira Vinke's lecture with a commentary on "Climate Migration and the Humanization of Refugee Law".

Please note that the lecture will be held in German.

The short film "Das Resort", directed by our Fellow Mathias Kessler was made under the impressions of the first Covid-19 lockdown. Adapted from a script by screenwriter Ron Kanecke and translated into German by Chiara Juriatti, the film tells of the nameless narrator's search for his father in a world where humans have been silenced by a virus. Against the backdrop of an unspecified mountain village, a narrative unfolds away from linear time, along memories of childhood, the father, and the world before and after catastrophe. A more detailed description of the movie can be found here.

On November 23, 2022, our Fellow Claudia J. Ford was invited to the University Klagenfurt to give a lecture on "Writing Nature: Justice, Identity & Environmentalism in American Multicultural Literature". Among other things, she spoke about the literary representation of ecological injustice and discussed with the participants the potential of literary texts to communicate the voices of ethnic minorities in connection with ecological challenges to the public.

The evening of Nov 17, our Scientific Manager (currently fellow at The New Institute) Frederic Hanusch appeared live within a TV-feature: The German channel 3sat invited him as a guest to discuss future forms of living in conversation with Imke Woelk (architect & artist), Stefan Brunnhuber (economist & psychiatrist), and Gert Scobel (journalist & philosopher) at the show “Scobel – Zukunft gestalten”. The show reflects on transforming the future in light of current planetary challenges. This episode, the round of guests debated on the interrelationship between democracy and climate policies, the effectiveness of “rights of nature” approaches in connection to transforming cities, and on the psychological challenges involved in changing our habits and renouncing our privileges. You can watch the full show on the 3sat Media Database.

On November 2, 2022 an article by Frederic Hanusch, Liza Bauer, our fellows Claudia Hartl and Clemens Finkelstein, and Claus Leggewie appeared in the PVS issue The Planetary Political(e) Thinking. "The Forest As Co-Actor? The Case Study of Planetary Politics" sheds light on how forests can be understood as active participants in 'planetary forest politics' and asks about the political science consequences of such an understanding. This collaborative article brings together the work of the panel and its first Fellows in the Planetary Scholars & Artists in Residence Program, whose focus during the summer semester was on the planetary material 'wood'.

Matthias Klestil delivered a response titled "Narratives of Environmental Knowledge in the Anthropocene" following Claudia J. Ford's James Lovelock Memorial Lecture.

He is Postdoctoral Assistant in American Studies at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria. He received his PhD from the University of Bayreuth, Germany, and was Bavarian Fellow at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. In his doctoral thesis he examined the interplay of mankind and nature and explored African American texts from an ecocritical perspective. Klestil’s first book Environmental Knowledge, Race, and African American Literature is forthcoming with Palgrave Macmillan (2023); his recent publications include scholarly articles on Colson Whitehead and Ted Chiang’s short fiction. Klestil’s current research project focuses on narrative theory, the Anthropocene, and contemporary North American fiction and film.

Ayşe Dayıs contribution "Sacred Feminine Birthing the New" responded to Claudia Ford's Artist's Talk during the opening of the "Planetary Origin Stories exhibition" (Nov. 11, 5:30 p.m.).

She is a psychologist, medical sociologist, healer and mindfulness trainer. After receiving her PhD from Penn State University, Ayşe worked over 15 years in universities in the U.S., Turkey, France, Switzerland and Germany, teaching and conducting research on women´s sexual/reproductive health rights. Her latest publication is the book “The Politics of the Female Body in Contemporary Turkey Reproduction, Maternity, Sexuality” which she co-edited with Drs. Alkan, Yarar and Topçu (2021, IB Tauris). In 2020, Ayşe established Orca Dreams: Platform for Mindful Living (www.orca-dreams.com) where she provides education and consultation on holistic health and mindfulness to individuals and organizations around the globe. In this platform Ayşe integrates her academic and activist knowledge on health with her mindfulness knowledge and practice to support individuals, groups and institutions through the great transformation of consciousness experienced by GAIA and ourselves. She will facilitate women’s healing circle Remembering & Honoring my Sacred Feminine February-March 2023 at VHS-Mitte, Berlin.

Planetary Materials fellow Claudia J. Ford's workshop series will take place on October 18 and November 10 and 11. Ford's work focuses on our relationship to planetary materials. As a scientist and artist, it is important to Ford that participants experience their own relationship to the Earth with all their senses. Accordingly, the series kicks off with the excursion to Gladbacherhof on October 18, where the experience of agricultural work will lead us to reflect on our relationship with food and its production. The events on November 10 and 11, broaden the focus and direct attention to experiencing one's own relationship with nature in the context of society and the current climate crisis. What role can James Lovelock's Gaia Theory and a relational understanding of our Earth play in this setting? In addition to exploring scientific aspects in a lecture and film screening, participants will also be invited to engage creatively with the question in a writing workshop on climate grief and a vernissage with collages on "Planetary Materials." We cordially invite all interested parties to join us at one or more events of this exciting program. Here, you can find more information about the individual events and registration.

In the face of the ongoing loss of biodiversity on the planet, more and more voices are calling for an entrenchment of solid rights of 'nature' within Western legal systems. In our planetary colloquium, questions about whether, how, and why the planet's myriad animal, plant, microbial, and other inhabitants can shape human politics were debated on. A more detailed report of the lecture can be found here.

A recording of the hybrid event is available for streaming on our YouTube channel.

On Oct. 27, the Panel visited the Sinclair-Haus, a museum funded by the Kunst und Natur foundation, to see the international exhibition Eternal Ice.

The exhibition displayed selected works of contemporary artists who showcased the cultural, political, social and other interrelationships in light of the global ice melt; its effects on local indigenous communities and on the world climate as a whole.

The exhibition sent us on a sensorial experience through visual and auditory means that included embroidery, photography and video installations. It showcased work which included (but not limited to) the embroidery work of the Swedish Sámi artist Britta Marakatt-Labba that recounted the (his)stories of Lappish reindeer herders in the far north, a short video collaboration, Rise: From One Island to Another between the Marshall Islander poet Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner and the author Aka Niviâna from Kalaalit Nunaat (Greenland).

Our special thanks go to Madelaine Heck for providing us with a thought-provoking guided tour of the exhibit!

DocTalks x MoMA

Clemens Finkelstein and Lydia Xynogala
25 October, 2022 / 4-6 PM CET / 10-12 AM EST

https://doctalks.net | register: Eventbrite

Clemens Finkelstein (Princeton University / Universität Hamburg)
“Environmental Control: Seismicity as Design Technique in Wilhelmine Germany"
(Respondent: Alfredo Thiermann, EPFL)

Our Fellow Clemens Finkelstein will give a lecture on "Environmental Control: Seismicity as Design Technique in Wilhelmine Germany" at MoMa on October 25 at 4:00 pm. The lecture investigated seismicity as collaborative design principle between geophysicists and architects in building so-called "Erdbebenwarten" (earthquake observatory).

For further information on the event series, visit https://doctalks.net. To register, please go to Eventbrite.

After a short summer break, we are excited to welcome the second round of PLANETARY MATERIALS - fellows to our Hub! Matthew Wilson and Claudia Ford will devote the winter term to exploring different questions about our relationships to planetary materials: For example, considering our relationship to soil, what role do its components play in current as well as future practices of agriculture? What has the past taught us, and what challenges do drought and other climatic changes pose to the present? How do biochemical processes of food production affect the DNA of different life forms? And how can we describe the origins of continuously evolving conceptions of ecological processes and systems? How do origin stories about humans and ecosystems from indigenous cosmologies differ from the ones told in cultures from Western countries, and how might they cross-fertilize?

The workshops of the fellowship term will take place November 10-12, and will be centered around the common theme of James Lovelock's Gaia Theory. Through a variety of activities - an interactive visit to Gladbacherhof, a film screening and writing workshop, and an exhibition of collages on PLANETARY MATERIALS - our fellows will explore the question of what lessons 'Gaia' provides for current societies in light of escalating planetary crises. More details will follow shortly.