Sibylle Anderl and Claus Leggewie approach the overwhelming nature of our star as a scientific and cultural-historical fact. Anyone who wants to say something about the sun cannot remain silent about heliocentric cosmologies, solar deities, the functioning of semiconductors, solar geoengineering and nuclear fusion.
The discussion focuses on the potential of speculative fiction texts to break with the mental frames animal industrial worlds are imposing on readers’ minds, provides some insights into textual analyses, and reflects on the future of human-animal relationships in times of planetary crises
The two-day workshop "Reading the Earth and Stars: Field Methods for Narrating Geological & Cosmic Time" by our Planetary Times winter fellows Aisling O'Carroll & Lukáš Likavčan will explore methods of narrating different modalities of (more than-) planetary time through the interpretation of observations from astronomy, geology and soil studies. Registrations are open until 20 November 2024.
The Planetary Colloquium and Workshop “Frozen in Time” is organized by Planetary Times Fellows Christian Kosmas Mayer and Charlotte Wrigley in collaboration with Adam Searle. The event will take place at Hermann Hoffman Academy, Giessen. Please register until 20 November 2024.
'The Temple of Science' is realized as a collaboration between Kunsthalle Giessen and the Panel on Planetary Thinking. The installation continues the INSIDEOUT exhibition series in the window of the Kunsthalle. The work showcases the results of Aisling O’Carroll’s fellowship within this year’s focus on ‘Planetary Times’ in the Planetary Scholars & Artists in Residence Program (2022-2025).
As part of the Panel's research project, the “Planet as Method” workshop, jointly organized by the Panel on Planetary Thinking at Justus Liebig University Giessen, the Institute for Sociology at Philipps University of Marburg, and the Institute for Sociology at TU Darmstadt, brought together an international group of scholars to explore innovative methodologies for researching our planetary condition.
The work by “Planetary Materials” fellow, Claudia Hartl, has contributed to a collaborative article on “Jet stream controls on European climate and agriculture since 1300 CE,” published recently and open-access by Nature. The interdisciplinary team explores summer jet stream latitude in the North Atlantic–European sector (EU JSL) and its impacts on regional climatic extremes and societal events.
We are delighted to welcome our winter fellows to the Panel! This year's theme is on Planetary Times and our three fellows will conduct an exciting chain of events in November.
Liza B. Bauer's (Interim Scientific Manager of the Panel) latest publication Livestock and Literature explores the past and current traces that cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals used by humans have left in Anglophone literary fiction. In view of the ecological footprint of industrial animal agriculture, the book seeks insights into how literature may reshape human-animal relationships beyond the page.
For the fourth time, the Panel invites applications for the international, fully funded Planetary Scholars & Artists in Residence Program (2022-2025). The focus of this final round lies in designing the building blocks of a PLANETARY DEMOCRACY prototype; a new form of democratic government that aims at keeping the Earth habitable and includes more-than-human agents. In 2025, EIGHT three-month FELLOWSHIPS are awarded to individuals/transdisciplinary pairs with an advanced academic or artistic record relevant to the underlying themes (1) PLANETARY AGENCY and/or (2) PLANETARY POLITICS. Deadline to apply is July 24, 2024 – see our Call for Applications for more details.
Humboldt fellow and Planetary Fellow Adenike Titilope Oladosu will give a keynote lecture as part of the event series “THE EX-TRAHERE MATRIX: Education, Climate, and Love from (Post-)Colonial Perspectives.” The lecture performance, titled “From Colonialism to Climate (In)justice,” will take place at the Waggonhalle Marburg.
In the final part of the ‘Parliament for the Future’ series, a Parliament of Animals is established in the Gießen town hall. As the global climate catastrophe intensifies, humans continue to destroy the habitat of other organisms. Is a good existence for all beings on this planet still possible? In the Gießen Parliament of Animals, various species raise their voices and defend their right to be heard.
The Panel on Planetary Thinking is announcing the Planetary Futures Competition for the last time within the period of 2022-2025. The aim of this competition is to provide financial support for transdisciplinary research projects that are in the preparatory phase for third-party funding applications. Application deadline is July 07, 2024.
The Panel says goodbye to Planetary Times summer fellow Connor Cook with a hike through Giessen’s Bergwerkswald that culminated in a visit to the forest adventure park “Kletterwald Gießen”.
On this year’s World Environment Day, Adenike Oladosu, our former fellow in Planetary Scholars & Artists in Residence Program is named the “ECW Climate Champion” by Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises.
The upcoming Masterclass, led by Prof. Dr. Clara Dawson, reflects upon different aspects of the Environmental Humanities and how its methods apply to different lines research by integrating perspectives from experts. It is targeted at anyone interested in new developments in the Environmental Humanities. With impulses by Panel Core Team members Liza Bauer and Meike Wiegand.
Planetary Times Summer Workshop 2024: Bioreactors and Biospheres by Planetary Times fellow and Media Artist Connor Cook will be held from May 28-29 at Kunsthalle Giessen (our collaborative partner). The two-day workshop by Cook and Synthetic Biologist Darren Zhu comprises of a roundtable discussion on the theory of an “Informatic Evolution of the Planet”, a film screening & discussion, creating immersive audiovisual worlds using a Raspberry Pi enabled bioreactor (Pioreactor) as well as an audiovisual performance by the artist. The link to the full event report can be found here.
Panel on Planetary Thinking research associate Clemens Finkelstein is teaching a workshop series at Deichtorhallen Hamburg during the exhibition "Survival in the 21st Century". This events topic is "Geologic Planetarity"
As nutrition can also contribute to climate protection, in the fifth part of the series “The Parliament for the Future,” we focus on the topic “Recipes for the Future: How does sustainable cooking actually work?” Together with the Giessen restaurant Veganatural and journalist Michaela Maria Müller, regional cuisine will be reinterpreted in a resource-conscious way at the Stadttheater.
What would cities be without urban nature, and how can cities be developed in the future to accommodate both humans and wildlife? Following up upon this question, the Panel, in collaboration with Stadttheater Giessen, organizes a city walk through the Philosophenwald and the Wieseck-Aue with biologist Dr. Markus Dietz.
What can religious communities, spiritual thinking, and pastoral care contribute to planetary thinking? Claus Leggewie discusses this with the author Otto Kallscheuer and theologians from Gießen.
A classic in modern cinema, 2001 - A Space Odyssey still influences current planetary discourse. Tracing its legacy, the Panel on Planetary Thinking, in cooperation with Kinocenter Giessen, hosts a movie discussion with movie critic Bert Rebhandl and a subsequent workshop on the potential of cinema's contributions on planetary thinking. Tickets can be bought at Kinocenter Giessen, in case you want to take part in the workshop please register at panel@planet.uni-giessen.de .
Our ‘Planetary Portal’ collaborators Jonathan S. Blake & Nils Gilman at the Berggruen Institute published a new book: CHILDREN OF A MODEST STAR is a vision for a new political system of political governance to manage planetary issues and their local consequences.
We are very pleased to welcome our fellow Connor Cook to the Planetary Hub for the summer semester! This year's fellowship program is under the theme PLANETARY TIMES.
What does joyful climate protection look like, ensuring biodiversity and guaranteeing the future viability of our cities? Can humans and animals coexist peacefully? In the "Parliament for the Future," the Panel on Planetary Thinking, in cooperation with the Stadttheater Gießen, explores these questions and outlines various scenarios for sustainable coexistence. The lecture “Animal-Aided Design: Towards an Architecture of Biodiversity” by Thomas E. Hauck (Studio Animal-Aided Design, Technical University of Vienna) focused on sustainable and responsible urban planning.
From January 26 to January 27, a network workshop on the interdisciplinary challenges of socio-ecological transformations took place at the Neues Schloss. Claus Leggewie, one of the co-founders of the Panel on Planetary Thinking, spoke as part of the event opening.
One of the works conducted by our Fellows in the "Planetary Materials"-cohort was the “Planetary Forest” intervention. The recently published book "Planetary Forest" documents the research process and the project’s evolution while introducing the art-science collective’s sociocultural and ecopolitical objectives. With contributions by the project participants Liza B. Bauer, Clemens Finkelstein, Frederic Hanusch, Claudia Hartl, Chiara Juriatti, Mathias Kessler, Holger Laake, Claus Leggewie, and Volker Wisseman.