Earthbound Knowledge: A Forum II

In a parallel series of hearings, thematic foci that have been identified at the Campus—that is, foundational concepts for an anthropocenic knowledge, crystallized from the collective development of the curriculum—were thoroughly discussed and analyzed.

Is it possible to identify a set of overarching terms from which one may then depart in the preparation of future curricula? Would such a “working language” allow for a productive transversality between fields of knowledge as well as an urgent, problem-centered approach towards educational content to take shape?

Insistently recurring concepts such as scale, complexity, experiment, or global ethics were highlighted and utilized by participants of the Campus and further guests, placed into perspective, stretched and tinkered with to prove their flexibility, measure, and appropriate potential for the dynamic generation of knowledge forms yet to come.

Model

Models are the heuristic backbone of our knowledge about systems and change. Characterized by simplification, abstraction, and mimesis models play a central role in the natural and social sciences, technical crafts and engineering, urbanism and architecture.
With Christoph Küffer, Sabine Höhler and
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Agency

With such grave consequences posed by actions and agents within the state of transition the Earth system is undergoing, the “Age of Man” raises central questions for philosophy and jurisprudence: who or what has or holds agency in the Anthropocene?
With Matteo Pasquinelli, Marco Armiero and Herbert Lohner.
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Complexity

The interconnection of entities, places, agencies, and times is a strong conviction across the disciplinary board when it comes to the world today. It has become difficult to imagine a system that is non-complex. Could there be an anti-complexity backlash? Can knowledge remain content with non-optimal solutions?
With Alejandra Torres-Camprubí, Miriam Diamond and Andrew Pickering.
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Socio-Ecological Design

When the Earth itself emerges as an object of design within the Anthropocene, the mandate to (re)construct socio-ecological systems may be seen as an aesthetic project par excellence.
With Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir, Bronislaw Szerszynski and Chip Lord.
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Participatory Governance

How can the concept of “power of, by, and for the people” be translated to scales that contain multiple geographies and subjectivities, that is, to the world? Do we need different models of governance, must we tap into other non-political orders of alliance, affinity, and relationality?
With Stella Veciana, Arno Brandlhuber and Christopher Brick.
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Earthly Ethics

The physical scale of the planet is compressed down to questions of conscience, responsibility, and empathy. How does the diversity of cultural predispositions and scientific authority – with its global entitlement – come to occupy shared spatio-temporal coordinates? What kind of ethical values does the Anthropocene demand?
With Zev Trachtenberg, Will Steffen and Philipp Oswalt.
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Scale

One of the central challenges posed by the Anthropocene is to sensitize, understand, and bridge the multiple spatiotemporal scales involved when speaking about the Earth system. Scaling the scales of space and time appears as a hotly-contested political arena for the composition of adequate knowledge forms.
With Emily Scott, Elena Bougleux and Tadzio Müller.
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Monitoring

In the Anthropocene, data and doing, earthly variables and human agency, converge. While our observational systems are measuring Earth system parameters as they break away into rapid flux, the fields that demand, enable, and record these observations – science, politics, economics – are trying to bring the disturbances “under control”.
With Jörg Sieweke, Armin Reller and Sabine Fuss.
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Experimentation

It appears that experimentation is the new reality check, now that the unexpected has become the new norm. However, if experimentation is on its way as a standard for generating knowledge forms, what will future experimentation look like?
Mit Maya Kovskaya, Erle Ellis, Nabil Ahmed, Jürgen Renn und Bernd Scherer
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