Content

This year wil we read and discuss my new book 'Ending the Anthropocene. Essays on Activism in the Age of collapse'

https://www.nai010.com/en/publicaties/ending-the-anthropocene/245929/

Here the cover blurb: "In this book, activist philosopher and philosophical activist Lieven de Cauter investigates the idea that if we want to avoid collapse, we have to end the Anthropocene – the geological era of the gigantic, devastating impact of our species on planet Earth. It might even be, he argues, that the collapse of our current, growth-maximizing system is the only hope for the biosphere.

Offering case studies on urban activism alongside more general reflections on civic action and social movements, De Cauter moves from the political melancholy caused by the near certainty of climate disaster and meditations on the end of ‘the Age of Man’, towards reflections on more hopeful events of our times, like the resurgence of the commons. He hails the rediscovery of this forgotten and excluded third besides public and private, arguing it contains the seeds of another worldview and another politics. From this new perspective identity and heterotopia, other spaces as places for otherness, can be read in a new light. This collection of writings closes with texts on the corona crisis. Biopolitics, the care for the life of the population by the state, has gained a new topicality in this age of pandemics.

The mix of philosophical, theoretical texts and newspaper articles make for a broadly accessible, exciting book of ‘activist essays’, in accordance with the basic creed of its author: ‘pessimism in theory, optimism in practice’. Even if geologists are not quite sure when the Anthropocene has begun, it is high time to end it."

Beside the reading and discussing of this book, students will present cases related to the themes of the book. 

Course material

Ending the Anthropocene. Essays on Activism in the Age of collapse' https://www.nai010.com/en/publicaties/ending-the-anthropocene/245929/

The book will be available in the Acco Heverlee bookschop at De Moete (small Alma)

Language of instruction: more information

The course will be held in English

Format: more information

The classes consist basically of readings and discussions, but student presentations, skype interviews with specialists and even excursions are possible.