The SNF project “Mediating the Ecological Imperative: Formats and Modes of Engagement” is a joint research project of the Institutes of Art History, American Studies and Social Anthropology at the University of Bern. In addition, a collaboration with the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) is being realized. Research focuses on the visual politics of climate change, the role of ecological issues in art and literature, and social engagement with the environment in indigenous cultures. The philosopher Hans Jonas coined the term “ecological imperative” in his book Das Prinzip Verantwortung (The Principle of Responsibility, 1979), in which he formulated an ecological maxim for action based on Immanuel Kant’s “Categorical Imperative”: “Act in such a way that the effects of your actions are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life on earth”. → Read more about the project
- Prof. Dr. Peter J. Schneemann (Lead, University of Bern)
- Prof. Dr. Gabriele Rippl (University of Bern)
- Prof. Dr. Michaela Schäuble (University of Bern)
- Prof. Dr. Peter Krieger (2021-22) (National Autonomous University of Mexico)
- Dr. Toni Hildebrandt (Advanced Postdoc and Coordinator, University of Bern)
- → See the whole project team
Lectures by Ina Blom, Sebastian Egenhofer, Julia Gelshorn, Toni Hildebrandt, Juliane Rebentisch, Kerstin Stakemeier, Ursula Ströbele, Pierre Wat and Christopher Williams-Wynn. Organized by André Rottmann.
Workshop with four lectures by Gabrielle Decamous (Kyushu) on Fukushima and Other Nuclear Disasters in the Arts, Kyoko Iwaki (Antwerp) on Ghostly Realism: Matsubara Shuntarō and Atmospheric Subjects, Maria Stavrinaki (Lausanne) on Bomb, Human Head: Remarks on a Post-atomic Pattern, and Theresa Deichert (Heidelberg) on Representing the Unreal: The Nuclear Uncanny in Masaharu Satō’s Fukushima Trace, and responses by Vega Tescari (Mendrisio) and Lilian Kroth (Fribourg).
Concept & Organization: Toni Hildebrandt, SNSF Sinergia Mediating the Ecological Imperative, Department of Modern and Contemporary Art History, Institute of Art History, and Walter Benjamin Kolleg, University of Bern, supported by the MVUB Grant at University of Bern.
Location: University of Bern, Mittelstrasse 43, room 324.
Gabriele Rippl, PI of the Sinergia subproject Ecological Imaginaries: Eco-Ekphrasis in Twentieth- and Twenty-first Century North American Fiction will give a keynote lecture at the conférence plénière on Ecological Imaginaries: Ekphrasis and the Mediation of the Anthropocene at the International Conference on Collaborations Texte-Image dans le monde anglophone du moyen âge au présent at University of Strasbourg, November 15-16, 2024.
