Perceiving Nature(s): Epistemic, Artistic, and Political Practices as Contested Fields

Musical Listening and the Politics of Unselfing (Musikalisches Zuhören als Politik der Selbstentäußerung)

Julian Johnson, University of London: What if listening to the world with the care and attention we bring to music reconfigures our sense of self? What if listening opens us out to other people and to the natural world in ways that question prevailing conceptions of a closed self-identity? Drawing on a wide convergence of interdisciplinary interest, I consider three consequences of such an idea. I argue that aesthetic listening: (1) challenges dominant accounts of music listening as a form of consumption by which objects are appropriated to the self; (2) resists the discursive certainties by which we try to categorise knowledge and experience and disjoins the language of both philosophy and empirical approaches; (3) shifts our focus from musical works or music history to listening as a mode of being, a lived practice with profound and urgent consequences for education, ethics, and politics.

Images of Agriculture (Bilder der Landwirtschaft)

Jan von Brevern, University of Weimar: The transformation of agriculture is one of the most pressing issues of our time. Industrialized agriculture is a major contributor to climate change and species extinction. But why is change in this area so difficult? While experts bemoan “the intellectual lack of ambition of the discourse”, lobby groups continue to conjure up idyllic images of small-scale farming, which has long been on the verge of disappearing. What can we do? How can we arrive at more contemporary images of agrarianism? The lecture develops cultural-historical perspectives on this problem and asks what contribution the humanities could make to the discussion. [lecture will be held in German]

Programme

14.00 Lecture Julian Johnson

15.30 Coffee break

16.00 Lecture Jan von Brevern