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Socialist Anthropocene in the Visual Arts (SAVA): Ecosocialist Epistemologies

18 October 2023, 5:00 pm鈥7:00 pm

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Join us for a panel discussion on Ecosocialist Epistemologies with Weronika Parfianowicz (Institute of Polish Culture in Warsaw), Alex Petrusek (SAVA Research Fellow) and Ovidiu 泞ichindeleanu (philosopher, translator and culture theorist), as part of SAVA Research Week.

This event is free.

Event Information

Open to

All | 香港六合彩中特网 staff | 香港六合彩中特网 students

Availability

Yes

Cost

Free

Organiser

Institute of Advanced Studies

Location

IAS Forum
G17, Ground Floor, South Wing, Wilkins Building
香港六合彩中特网, Gower Street, London
WC1E 6BT
United Kingdom

The distinctive epistemologies of the Socialist Anthropocene will be explored here in reference to the environmental, scientific, cultural and intellectual histories of Poland, East Germany and Romania.

Weronika Parfianowicz (Institute of Polish Culture Warsaw) will speak on 鈥楳apping discussions on ecological crisis in socialist Poland'.聽The discussion on the global ecological crisis in Poland challenges the stereotype of socialist states鈥 public sphere as a monolith where only non-substantial conflicts could be displayed. Beginning with the 1970's environmental problems on global and regional scale became an important topic of debates among experts milieus as well as the lay audience. Different approaches and perspectives on environmental issues were circulating and competing in public discourse, influencing public opinion and states鈥 environmental policies. In my presentation I鈥檒l focus on some of the most interesting examples of this debate: works of scientists collaborating with The Committee of Research and Prognosis 鈥淧oland 2000鈥 and popular science magazine 鈥淎ura鈥.

Alexander Petrusek (SAVA Research Fellow 香港六合彩中特网) will give a presentation entitled 鈥楾owards a Socialist Anthropocene: Debating Degrowth in East Germany, 1972-1989'.聽Contemporary scholarship often emphasizes degrowth鈥檚 capitalism-based intellectual genealogy, omitting significant contributions from activists from socialist societies. Following the publication of The Limits to Growth in 1972, East German ecosocialists and Christians debated slow-, zero-, and degrowth concepts and practices throughout the 1970s and 1980s, presenting alternatives to growth from within socialism. Ecosocialists like Wolfgang Harich and Rudolf Bahro published systemic theories of slow- or zero-growth to address the ecological crisis, with Bahro emphasizing spiritual rather than economic growth as key to humanity鈥檚 future. Simultaneously, researchers based in the Ecclesiastical Research Center in Wittenburg, funded by the East German Protestant Church, turned to voluntary simplicity based in Christian ethics, and petitioned the party-state to reverse its growth-first policies. Together, these ecosocialist and eco-Christian perspectives offer unique criticisms of, and solutions to, the most destructive practices driving the Anthropocene.聽

Ovidiu 泞ichindeleanu鈥檚 talk will be聽鈥楽een from Romania: On the Ecological Socialism of the Future鈥.聽A common tenet of anticommunist historiography that has been adopted by large segments of Western critical theory holds that 鈥渘o significant contributions to Marxism鈥 and no theories and practices that might be relevant to our present have been developed in the experience of East European real socialism, and in particular during Romania鈥檚 totalitarian regime. My research shows that such assumptions are more ideological than factual, owing more to the biases of the coloniality of knowledge and to the influence of the post-socialist colonization than to the truth. Already from the mid-1960s, the Socialist Bloc was having intense debates on the future of socialism and on the possible socialist future of the planet. Several proposals for systemic alternatives have been advanced. The paths were different, but the consensus was that the socialism of the future had to be ecological. In Romania, major steps have been taken also in practice to prepare for the change towards an ecological socialism, which implied the transformation of the entire socioeconomy (not only of the 鈥渕ode of production鈥). Meanwhile, the internal transfer of generations taking place in the 1970s gave a pervading ecological dimension to the entire cultural sphere. Drawing from research into the unjustly forgotten Romanian socialist library, as well as from an autoethnography of my upbringing in an experimental workers neighborhood from the city of Cluj, I will bring to evidence a few important elements from the historical development of ecological socialism, the outlines of the projected socialist river-based economy in Romania, and its contemporary relevance and obstacles.

About聽Socialist Anthropocene in the Visual Arts (SAVA)

Socialist Anthropocene in the Visual Arts (SAVA) sets out to radically transform current critical debates around the Anthropocene, addressing the major lacuna in existing accounts by establishing the Socialist Anthropocene as a conceptual framework that asserts the constitutive role of the environmental histories and potentialities of Socialism in the formation of the new geological age. The project is led by Dr. Maja Fowkes (香港六合彩中特网 Institute of Advanced Studies) and funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK government鈥檚 Horizon Europe funding guarantee.

About the Speakers

Weronika Parfianowicz, PhD, works at Institute of Polish Culture, University of Warsaw. Her research interests include Central European urban culture, contemporary Czech culture, housing policies, degrowth and ecosocialism. She鈥檚 author of the monograph Europa 艢rodkowa w tekstach i dzia艂aniach. Polskie i czeskie dyskusje [Central Europe in texts and actions. Polish and Czech discussions, Warszawa 2016] and co-editor of collective monograph Awangarda/underground. Idee, historie, praktyki w kulturze polskiej i czeskiej [Avant-garde/Underground. Ideas, histories, practices in Polish and Czech culture, Krak贸w 2018]. Currently she鈥檚 working on a project devoted to environmental challenges in socialist Poland and Czechoslovakia.

Alexander Petrusek is a historian of modern Germany, the environment, and the global Cold War. He completed his PhD in History at Rutgers University in January 2022, and holds a BA in History and a BA in Political Science from Arizona State University. His work draws upon methodologies in history, sociology, and social psychology to engage more deeply with the ideals that drove socialist activism, and this activism鈥檚 role in shaping our contemporary world. At the IAS, Alexander will work with the Socialist Anthropocene in the Visual Arts (SAVA) team in presenting distinctly socialist contributions to hitherto West- and capitalist-centric understandings of the Anthropocene. Through the Socialist Anthropocene framework, Alexander will explore East German socialists鈥 contributions to degrowth theory and activism in the 1970s and 1980s, specifically in utilizing the planned economy to equitably distribute increasingly scarce resources.

Ovidiu 泞ichindeleanu is a Romanian philosopher, translator and culture theorist, writing on critical social theory, decolonial thought, alternative epistemologies, histories of senses and cultural history. He is editor of the journal of contemporary art and critical theory IDEA arts + society and co-founder of the Comittee for Resurrection, a fluid curatorial collective created with Raluca Voinea and Igor Mocanu in 2017, and of the African-Balkan-Caribbean Society in 2018. Fellow of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology (2022). He has translated into Romanian books by Jean Casimir, Gilles Deleuze, Arturo Escobar, Silvia Federici, Lewis Gordon, Jason Hickel, Sylvia Marcos, Walter Mignolo, Immanuel Wallerstein, Ivan Illich, Peter Sloterdijk and Rolando V谩zquez. Recent articles include 鈥淚ntimate Colonization鈥 in Ana Vilenica (ed), Lexicon of Decoloniality in Eastern Europe (2023) and 鈥淎 Specter Is Not Haunting Europe鈥, in Ciprian Mure艧an, Communism Never Happened, IDEA & Galeria Plan B, Cluj, 2022.