Annual Conference 2024
What orientations towards the future are emerging as intertwined ecological, social, and political crises intensify? The conference explores the entanglements of catastrophic and hopeful thinking in the Anthropocene. In particular, it examines the role of hopeful attachments in the midst of the ongoing destruction of life-worlds. As more and more ecosystems and social fabrics are threatened, what forms of visionary, future-oriented politics might still emerge? What promises are made at a time when the future seems lost (Garcés 2023)? Where are people investing in alternative “architectures of possibilities” (Simone 2020), and to what effect?
Evening events: Our panels at the Centre are already fully booked, but we would like to welcome you at our evening events at Deutsches SchauSpielHaus Hamburg (MalerSaal). Get your tickets for:
- Wed., October 9: Opening Panel: N/Hope: What Future Visions for a Ruined Planet? (more below)
- Thu., October 10: Anwälte der Natur / Lawyers of Nature (German & English), Theater Play by Frank Raddatz (Berlin), Panel Discussion: Hopeful Attachments to the Rights of Nature? (German with English translation) (more below)
Digital Participation/Webinar (Zoom): Due to the high demand and the limited capacities at our venue, we decided to stream parts of the conference online. This applies to all parts of the of the program which take place at our Centre. You are kindly invited to participate digitally via our Zoom Webinar. For details see below.
(PRELIMINARY) CONFERENCE PROGRAM
(PDF, Version 08 October 2024)
Wednesday, October 9
01:00pm–01:30pm
Welcome and Opening
at Centre for Advanced Studies “Futures of Sustainability” --> Gorch-Fock-Wall 3, 20354 Hamburg
01:30pm–03:00pm
Hope in Ruins — Chair: Frank Adloff (Hamburg)
Gerard Delanty (Sussex): Rethinking Hope in Dystopian Times: A Critical Assessment
Brigitte Bargetz (Vienna), Sara Minelli (Kiel): We Will All Be Disappointed in the End: Rethinking Utopia from the Affective and Temporal Politics of Ruins
Discussant: Nina Perkowski (Hamburg)
03:00pm–03:30pm Coffee and Cake
03:30pm–05:00pm
Hope & Critique in the Anthropocene — Chair: Macario Lacbawan (Hamburg)
Heidi Sinevaara-Niskanen (Lapland): (Counter)productive Hope: Scrutinising the Role of Hope in Sustainability
Valerie Waldow (Magdeburg): Negativity as Hope: A Lens for Critique in the Anthropocene
Discussant: Eray Çaylı (Hamburg)
05:00pm–05:30pm
Informal Book Launch:
Hope in the Anthropocene. Agency, Governance and Negation (Link)
with two of the editors: Valerie Waldow, David Chandler (London)
Comment: Delf Rothe (Hamburg)
05:30pm–06:00pm
Walk/Ride to Deutsches SchauSpielHaus Hamburg (Link)
--> Kirchenallee 39, 20099 Hamburg, entrance MalerSaal
06:00pm–07:00pm
Dinner on-site (only for workshop participants)
07:00pm–08:30pm
Opening Panel: N/Hope: What Future Visions for a Ruined Planet? (English with German translation)
with: Ben Anderson (Durham), Kübra Gümüşay (Hamburg), Carl Cassegård (Gothenburg)
Chair: Christine Hentschel (Hamburg)
Thursday, October 10
08:30am–09:00am
Coffee at Centre for Advanced Studies “Futures of Sustainability” (Link)
--> Gorch-Fock-Wall 3, 20354 Hamburg
09:00am–10:45am
Feminist and Decolonial Recoveries of Hope — Chair: Michael Schnegg (Hamburg)
Lorina Buhr, Isabel von Holt, Sophie Witt (Hamburg): Situating Critical Hope From Dialectical, Queer Feminist, Decolonial Perspectives
Susan Paulson (Gainesville): Forging Pleasurable Worlds With Decolonial Feminisms and Caring Masculinities
Giovanna Di Chiro (Swarthmore), Wendy Harcourt (The Hague): Situating Hope as Critical Life-Making in a Time of Danger
Discussant: Ben Anderson (Durham)
10:45am–11:15am
Coffee Break
11:15am–01:00pm
World-Making Otherwise — Chair: Stefan C. Aykut (Hamburg)
David Chandler (London): Worlding as Radical Hope: An Abolitionist Agenda for World-Making Otherwise
Leonardo Nolé (Odense): Elements of a Desirable Future: Human and Technological Agency in High School Students’ Climate Fiction
Aastha Tyagi (Hamburg): Hope as Academic Praxis: How Climate Researchers Use Academic Work to Produce a Praxis of Hope
Discussant: Heidi Sinevaara-Niskanen (Lapland)
01:00pm—02:00pm
Lunch: Catering on-site
02:00pm–03:30pm
(Urban) Polycrisis & Hope — Chair: Eray Çaylı (Hamburg)
Hara Kouki (Crete): Resisting Hopelessness: Being in Solidarity in Crisis-Ridden Athens
Chris Zebrowski (Loughborough): Hope in Crisis: Reconsidering Resilience in the Wake of COVID-19
Discussant: Susanne Krasmann (Hamburg)
03:30pm–04:00pm
Coffee Break
04:00pm–05:30pm
Global Politics of Hope — Chair: Susan Paulson (Gainesville)
Andrés López Rivera (Hamburg): Technologies of Hope(Lessness): The Anticipatory Politics of Climate Overshoot and Carbon Removals
Ayşem Mert (Stockholm), Franziska Müller (Hamburg), Valerie Waldow (Magdeburg), Laura Horn (Roskilde): Writing the Future of Global Politics: Hope, Despair, and the Mid-Century Bang
Discussant: Stefan C. Aykut (Hamburg)
05:30pm–06:00pm
Walk/Ride to Deutsches SchauSpielHaus Hamburg (Link)
--> Kirchenallee 39, 20099 Hamburg, entrance MalerSaal
06:00pm–07:00pm
Dinner on-site (only for workshop participants)
07:00pm–08:30pm
Anwälte der Natur / Lawyers of Nature (German & English)
Theater Play by Frank Raddatz (Berlin)
08:45pm–09:45pm
Panel: Hopeful Attachments to the Rights of Nature? (German with English translation)
with Katharina Hoppe (Frankfurt/M.), Frank Raddatz (Berlin), Roda Verheyen (Hamburg), Sophie Witt (Hamburg)
Chair: Frank Adloff (Hamburg)
Friday, October 11
9:00am–10:45am
Social Movements, Extinction, and Hopelessness — Chair: Philipp Jacobi (Hamburg)
at exhibition Climate No Future, Pop-Up-Raum
--> Grindelallee 129, 20146 Hamburg
Delf Rothe (Hamburg), David Shim (Groningen): Climate No Future: Exploring the Apocalyptic Hope of Extinction Activism
Amy Robson (Durham): Before It’s Too Late: The Extinction Script, Multi-Species Reproductive Futurism and Extinction Rebellion.
Discussant: Carl Cassegård (Gothenburg)
10:45am–11:00am
Walk/Ride back to Centre for Advanced Studies “Futures of Sustainability” (Link)
--> Gorch-Fock-Wall 3, 20354 Hamburg
11:00am–11:30am
Coffee Break
11:30am–01:00pm
Climate Justice, Hope, and the Law — Chair: Susanne Krasmann (Hamburg)
Pancho Lewis (Lancaster): Attaching and Detaching From the Promise of Democracy: Hope in an English Climate Jury
Jenny Pickerill, Ankit Kumar (Sheffield): Spatialities and Contingencies of Hope and Hopelessness in Generating a Radical Politics of Climate Justice
Elen Stokes (Bristol): Five Acts of Hope in Environmental Law
Discussant: Juneseo Hwang (Hamburg)
01:00pm–02:00pm
Lunch: Catering on-site
02:00pm–03:45pm
Hope, Loss and Life: Concrete Experiments in Temporality — Chair: Christine Hentschel (Hamburg)
Franziska von Verschuer (Frankfurt/M.): The Art of Mourning Agrobiodiversity Loss: Hope Beyond Techno-Salvationism
Vasna Ramasar (Lund): Practising Hope and (Re)Generating Life: Experiments in Weaving a Global Tapestry of Alternatives
Inna Sukhenko (Helsinki): Situating ‘Slow Hope’ within Nuclear Knowledge Management: Fictionalizing Nuclear Tierratraumatic Experience for Children and Young Adults
Discussant: Cassiopea Staudacher (Hamburg)
03:45pm–04:15pm
Closing Remarks and Next Steps