Annual Conference 2021

"Unsustainable Past - Sustainable Futures?"

Annual Conference (digital) of the Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies
"Futures of Sustainability: Modernization, Transformation, Control"
11 and 12 February 2021

In its digital Annual Conference 2021, the Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies "Futures of Sustainability" asks whether a sustainable future is still possible regarding the 200-year long history of disastrous ecological development of the earth. To pursue this question, it is necessary to further define the situation we find ourselves in. We must clarify how to describe our present of global warming, species extinction, and the poisoning of soils, water, and air more accurately. Moreover, in order to know whether the historical path of ecosystem destruction is reversible, we must ascertain what has led to this path and what continues to stabilize it.
For this purpose, the annual conference adopts different perspectives. Drawing attention to humanity as a whole on a planetary scale, the age of the Anthropocene elucidates the tremendous extent to which humanity has now become an all-encompassing geological force. What follows from these considerations for the social and cultural sciences?
By differentiating humanity historically, economically as well as culturally, more specific social constellations come into view. Is the exploitation of nature a characteristically "Western" phenomenon rooted in an instrumental understanding of nature requiring far-reaching cultural change to be overcome? Or does the economic mode of capitalism mainly produce the destruction of the ecosystem? Can there be a social-ecological transformation at all within an economic regime of permanent capital accumulation?
All prospects for socio-ecological change depend on what futures are assumed to be likely. Can "sustainable futures" be achieved through ecological modernization or profound societal transformations, given that we are dealing with a crisis that is, in principle, still surmountable? Or is the earth system already leaving the planetary boundaries of a habitable planet? Are we heading for a global civilizational collapse?

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Day 1
11 February 2021

5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. (CET)

• 5:30 p.m. Conference Introduction
  Frank Adloff and Sighard Neckel (Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies, Hamburg)
  
  
• 6:00 p.m. Keynote Speech
  "Sustainability and Habitability: The Planetary Age in Human History" (on YouTube)
  Dipesh Chakrabarty (University of Chicago)
  
  
• Discussion

Day 2
12 February 2021

9:30 a.m. - 2:45 p.m. (CET)

• 9:30 a.m. Session A: "Prospects: Crisis vs. Collapse"
  
  • David Spratt (Breakthrough - National Centre for Climate Restoration, Australia)
    "Existential climate risk, markets and the state" (on YouTube)
  • Ulrike Kornek (Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel)
    "Equitable Carbon Pricing and the Paris Climate Goals" (on YouTube)
  • Discussion
    
    
  • Chair: Benno Fladvad (Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies, Hamburg)
    
    
• 10:50 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.: Break
  
  
• 11:00 a.m. Session B: "Causes: Culture vs. System"
  
  • Kohei Saito (Osaka University, Japan):
    "Climate Crisis and Ecological Revolution: Climate Keynesianism, Accelerationism and Ecosocialism" (on YouTube)
  • Giacomo D'Alisa (Ecology and Society Lab, Center for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Portugal):
    "The case for degrowth" (on YouTube)
  • Discussion
    
    
  • Chair: Sarah Lenz (Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies, Hamburg)
    
    
• 12:20 p.m. - 1:15 p.m.: Break
  
  
• 1:15 p.m. - 2:45 p.m.: Panel discussion: "Modernization, transformation, control: Can there be a sustainable future?" (on YouTube)
  

Frank Adloff (Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies, Hamburg)
Stefan C. Aykut (Universität Hamburg)
Christine Hentschel (Universität Hamburg)
Birgit Mahnkopf (Institute for International Political Economy, Berlin)
Sighard Neckel (Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies, Hamburg)
Nina Treu (Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie, Leipzig)
Chair: Tanja Busse (Journalist, Hamburg)

Registration is open:

The conference will be held in English and as a Zoom-Webinar. During the discussions (after the Keynote Speech and at the end of the Sessions A and B) and during the Panel discussion you will have the possibility to ask questions via the question & answer (Q&A) feature.

If you would like to participate, please register by sending an e-mail to zukuenfte.der.nachhaltigkeit"AT"uni-hamburg.de
 
Registered participants will receive further information and the Zoom access details shortly before the conference.

Further details will be announced here.