The Noötechnics collective is proud to be involved in the organization of this ground breaking event, featuring a debate between Bernard Stiegler and Peter Sloterdijk.
University in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, 27-28 June 2016

On the 27th and 28th of June 2016, the Radboud University of Nijmegen (the Netherlands) will organize, in cooperation with the Nootechnics Collective, an encounter between German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk and French philosopher Bernard Stiegler. This two-day encounter will consist of a public debate between these two thinkers, to be held in De Vereeniging in the city of Nijmegen during the evening of Monday the 27th of June, flanked by two expert seminars, one on Monday the 27th in the morning and the afternoon and one on Tuesday the 28th, also morning and afternoon, on the campus of the Radboud University (in these two seminars, some time will also be reserved for interventions from students of the Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies as well as master students who have followed an honours course on the work of both thinkers especially related to the theme of the encounter).

The title of the encounter is ‘Anthropos-Anthropotechnics-Anthropocene’ and this means that it will be thematically devoted to the relation between humanity, technology and ecology in the work of both Sloterdijk and Stiegler and more specifically to an exploration of the changing relations between the human and technology within the emerging context of the anthropocene – i.e., the new geological epoch proposed recently by geologists and earth systems scientists in which ‘the human’ has supposedly become the most important geological (f)actor.

The emergence of the anthropocene as an event of a truly anthropological magnitude, possibly representing the first genuine anthropological crisis and signaling the necessity of humanity to become fully mature and assume responsibility for its own fragile oikos, thereby establishing an ethical imperative with an absolute and universal appeal, as Sloterdijk claimed in You must change your life. As he wrote in a recent essay: ‘The coining of the term “Anthropocene” thus inevitably obeys an apocalyptic logic: it indicates the end of any peace of mind in the cosmos, on which historical forms of human being-in-the-world rested’. Stiegler also stresses the gravity of the ‘anthropocenic event’ (Bonneuil & Fressoz) and considers it to represent ‘a state of extreme urgency’. He points toward the duty of philosophy to live up to the urgency and gravity of this event by trying to think it and propose a strategy for exiting or overcoming the anthropocene and inaugurate what he calls the
‘neganthropocene’, which would consist in a global organological revolution. As he wrote in a recent lecture on the anthropocene given in 2014 in Canterbury: ‘The singularity of the Anthropocene as an organological epoch lies in the fact it has generated the organological question [
] bringing with it something new: its negative protention and the necessity of overcoming itself’.
Given the many remarkable parallels but also salient divergences in their respective, i.e., ‘sphero-immunological’ and ‘pharmaco-organological’ philosophical conceptualizations of the anthropos, its technogenic evolution and thoroughly technical condition as well as their estimations of our current global ecological predicament, we believe this encounter will most surely provoke many interesting and urgent philosophical questions and can provide crucial insights for the new self-understanding of the anthropos and its totally novel anthropotechnic situation emerging from the context of the anthropocene and thus for the question of how to deal, technologically but also culturally and politically, with our current situation and future destiny in view of the emerging anthropocenic condition.

Program

Monday 27 June 2016, Morning-Afternoon
First Expert Workshop, 9:30h – 17:00h

Venue: Faculty Club Huize Heyendael,
Radboud University Campus

9:00h – 9:30h – Welcome with coffee and tea

9:30h – 10:00h

Opening and Introduction by Prof. Dr. Hans Thijsen, Dr. Pieter Lemmens and Dr. Yuk Hui

10:00h – 11:30h

Prof. Dr. Tom Cohen (State University of New York)

‘“Anthropocene Inc” and the politics of delayed extinction. Notes on the current acceleration’

Dr. Jason Moore (Binghamton University)

– ‘Against economism: The technics of cheap nature’

Prof. Dr. Howard Caygill (Kingston University)

– ‘Anthropocene or anthropite? The human extinction event’

11:30h – 12:00h – Coffee Break

12:00h – 13:30h

Prof. Dr. René ten Bos (Radboud University)

– ‘Anthropocene and cynicism’

Prof. Dr. Pieter Leroy (Radboud University)

– ‘The anthropocene: a critique from environmental history and environmental politics’

Prof. Dr. Peter Westbroek (Leiden University)

– Earth and civilization

13:30h – 15:00h Lunch Break

15:00h – 16:30h

General Discussion

16:30h-17:00h

Wrap up and closure

Monday 27 June 2016, Evening

Welcome to the Anthropocene

Public Debate Between Philosophers Peter Sloterdijk and Bernard Stiegler

19:30h – 21:00h

Venue: De Vereeniging, City Centre Nijmegen

Debate Between Peter Sloterdijk and Bernard Stiegler moderated by Lisa Doeland from Radboud Reflects and introduced by Dr. Pieter Lemmens from the Institute for Science Innovation and Society and Radboud University

Tuesday 28 June 2016, Morning-Afternoon

Second Expert Workshop, 9:30h – 17:00h

Venue: Soeterbeeck Conference Centre Ravenstein

9:30h – 10:00h – Welcome with coffee and tea

Windesheimzaal

10:00h – 11:30h

Dr. Iwona Janicka (University of Warwick)

– ‘Politics and non-humans: Spherology and general organology as compasses for political practice?’

Dr. Sjoerd van Tuinen (Erasmus University)

– ‘Critique of negentropic reason’

Prof. Dr. Hub Zwart (Radboud University)

– ‘Anthropocene, noosphere and distributed reflection’

11:30h – 12:00h – Coffee Break

12:00h – 13:30h

Nootechnics Collective:

Dr. Sara Baranzoni (Universidad de Investigación de Tecnología Experimental Yachay)

Dr. Paolo Vignola (Universidad de Investigación de Tecnología Experimental Yachay)

– ‘The tragical end of the anthropocene between immunology and becoming sick. Symptoms and side effects’

Dr. Anais Nony (University of Minnesota)

– The Politics of care in the age of dispossession

Dr. Benoït Dillet (Loughborough University)

– ‘The anthropocene and geo-constructivism’

Dr. Paul Willemarck (Nootechnics Collective)

– ‘Sloterdijk: life and death of humankind’

Dr. Alexander Wilson (Aarhus University)

– ‘Biosphere, noosphere, infosphere: Epistemo-aethetics and the age of big data’

13:30h – 15:00h Lunch Break

15:00h – 15:30h

Questions for Prof. Sloterdijk and prof. Stiegler by Radboud philosophy students

15:30h – 16:15h

General Discussion

16:15h-16:45h

Dr. Yuk Hui (Leuphana University) and Dr. Pieter Lemmens (Radboud University)

Retrospective summary and conclusions

16:45h-17:00h

Wrap up and Closure