21 May
2025
21 May
'25
12:14 p.m.
Dear colleagues,
We are happy to invite you to a lecture that is part of the new event
series THINKING NATURE [1]that will take place at the Department of
Philosophy, University of Vienna, 2025-2026 (more information below),
organised by Eva-Maria Aigner and Ralf Gisinger.
The first lecture will take place on Friday, June 6, 6-8pm_,_ online and
in a hybrid setting, Room 3A (NIG):
Philippe Lynes (Durham University): "Anecological Dwelling: Derrida,
Heidegger, Blanchot"
Abstract: In the second year of his _The Thing _seminar (1976), Jacques
Derrida undertakes a comparative analysis of Martin Heidegger's
"Building, Dwelling, Thinking" with the literary work of Maurice
Blanchot. For Derrida, if Heidegger's bridge signals a gathering of two
shores, a gathering wherein mortals may learn to properly dwell in
saving the earth, the bridge for Blanchot would hint at an infinite
distancing of the two shores, a devastation that knows no salvation.
This interplay of the economical and the aneconomical, _the ecological
and the anecological_ would organize all of Derrida's readings of
Heidegger and Blanchot almost twenty years later in the _Secret et
témoignage _seminars. In unfolding these readings, we will ask what it
might mean, in reconsidering the relations and non-relations between
thinking and nature, to dwell _anecologically? _Might the anecological
open onto a new thinking that leaves nature to its secrecy _without us?_
Bio: Philippe Lynes' research situates itself at the intersections of
the environmental humanities, continental philosophy and ecocriticism.
He has held an Addison Wheeler Fellowship with the Institute of Advanced
Study and the Department of English Studies at Durham University. He was
a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Romance Languages and
Literatures at Harvard University, and held the Fulbright Canada
Visiting Research Chair in Environmental Humanities at the University of
California, Irvine. Lynes is the author of the two-volume _Dearth:
Deconstruction after Speculative Realism_, forthcoming with Northwestern
University Press in 2025 and 2026, and _Futures of Life Death on Earth:
Derrida's General Ecology_ (Rowman & Littlefield International, 2018).
He is co-editor (with Matthias Fritsch and David Wood) of
_Eco-Deconstruction: Derrida and Environmental Philosophy_, (Fordham
University Press, 2018) and (with Timothy Clark) of the _Oxford Literary
Review_ special issue "What Might Eco-Deconstruction Be?" (2023) Lynes
is also a translator and editor of French philosophy and literature,
notably of the work of Jacques Derrida and Maurice Blanchot. He is
associate editor of the journal _Derrida Today_, and one of the lead
editors of Blanchot's literary estate. He is currently working on two
books, _Ecologies of Emptiness_, on the Kyoto School, and an
introductory book on _The_ _Environmental Posthumanities_.
There will be two short responses to the lecture by Eva-Maria Aigner and
Noemi Call (both University of Vienna).
We will send out the zoom-link closer to the lecture.
Here you find more information about the event series:
THINKING NATURE [1]
University of Vienna, 2025-2026
Poststructuralism has long been accused of a general indifference to
questions of materiality and natural philosophy. From this perspective,
and in light of the urgent philosophical problem of the looming climate
crisis, poststructuralist theory does not seem ideally suited to
contribute to the question of nature. In recent years, however, numerous
authors have shown how poststructuralist theories can be made fruitful
in ecology, geo-philosophy or a philosophy of nature.
The lecture series, organised and curated by Eva-Maria Aigner and Ralf
Gisinger (Research Group "Poststructuralism, Gender Theory,
Psychoanalysis"), brings together some of the most intriguing
contemporary theorists in this field who will be invited to the
Department of Philosophy Vienna to give their philosophical perspectives
on "Thinking Nature" in the Anthropocene.
Events 2025
Philippe Lynes (Durham University)
_June 6_, 18:00-20:00, online. Live-Streaming and Responses in Room 3A
(NIG)
Didier Debaise (Université Libre Bruxelles)
_October 16_, Keynote, 18:30 (Lecture Room 3A (NIG), on-site/hybrid)
_October 17_, Workshop, 10:00-16:00 (Lecture Room 3A (NIG),
on-site/hybrid)
Claire Colebrook (Penn State University)
_November 21_, 10:00-12:00, online. Live-Streaming and Responses in Room
3A (NIG)
Organised by Ralf Gisinger and Eva-Maria Aigner
Funded by the Vienna Doctoral School of Philosophy
Research Group "Poststructuralism, Gender Theory, Psychoanalysis"
Registration and Information:
ralf.gisinger(a)univie.ac.at
eva-maria.aigner(a)univie.ac.at
poststrukturalismus.univie.ac.at [2]
Links:
------
[1]
https://poststrukturalismus.univie.ac.at/veranstaltungen/thinking-nature-ev…
[2]
https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpoststru…