"Utopias are dead. Long live Utopias!", 14 November 2024, 18:00-20:00

“Utopias are dead. Long live Utopias!”
14 November 2024, 18:00 - 20:00h
Panel Discussion with Graphic Recording
Informal reception afterwards
 
With Mathias Thaler (University of Edinburgh), Davina Cooper (King's College London) and Nina Perkowski (University of Hamburg)

A characteristic feature of current diagnoses of the present – whether they originate in the social or the natural sciences – is a gloomy outlook on emerging futures. In the rising tide of interconnected polycrises, global challenges and “Zeitenwenden”, utopias are facing difficult times. Although they have always been ‘non-places’ by name, today they seem even more distant, perhaps even dead.
Against this backdrop, we want to critically assess the potential of utopias in socio-political future-making. Do they have a future at all? And if so, how should our understanding of utopias and utopian practice be reshaped in and for the 21st century? What real-world examples might help to re-envision utopia today?
These and further questions will be discussed with two eminent scholars working on the topic of utopias. Opportunities for exchange with and among the audience will be facilitated. The discussion will be accompanied and documented by an artist via graphic recording.

We look forward to welcoming:

Prof. Dr. Mathias Thaler is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Edinburgh and has published widely on utopias, hope and failure in relation to the climate movement. His monograph “No Other Planet: Utopian Visions for a Climate-Changed World” was published by Cambridge University Press in 2022. 

Prof. Dr. Davina Cooper is Professor of Law and Political Theory at King's College London and researches utopian, transgressive and radical forms of state and non-state governance. Her monograph “Everyday Utopias: The Conceptual Life of Promising Spaces” was published by Duke University Press in 2014.

The evening will be held in English and moderated by Prof. Dr. Nina Perkowski (Assistant Professor of Sociology, Violence and Security at the University of Hamburg and Young Academy Fellow at the Academy of the Sciences in Hamburg).

Registration:
Entry is free of charge, but registration under futures.of.sustainability@uni-hamburg.de is required.

Location: 
DFG-Kolleg-Forschungsgruppe „Zukünfte der Nachhaltigkeit“
Gorch-Fock-Wall 3 (doorbell sign „Nachhaltigkeit“), Room 1021
20354 Hamburg

The event is jointly organised by Lukas Bäuerle, Vincent Gengnagel, and Nina Perkowski, Young Academy Fellows from the Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Hamburg (ASHA), and the DFG Humanities Centre “Futures of Sustainability”.

More information is available here: https://www.awhamburg.de/veranstaltungen/aktuelle-termine/detail/utopias-are-dead-long-live-utopias.html