ABSTRACTS
Brenda Saraí Jaramillo
University of California, Los Angeles
Ocean Poetics and the Black Diaspora in the Poems of Lívia Natália
Lívia Natália (1979) is a contemporary Afro-Brazilian poet whose works celebrate Black diasporic identity through a clear and persistent reference to the ocean: her first book, published in 2011, is titled Água negra; her second, Correntezas e outros estudos marinhos in 2013; the third, Água Negra e Outras Águas in 2016, her fourth Sobejos do Mar in 2017, and most recently, Dia bonito para chover, also in 2017. Consistently throughout her literary corpus, Natália returns to the ocean as a site of self-creation, self-reflection, and creative gestation. My presentation aims to contextualize Lívia Natália’s ocean poetics alongside the work of other Black diasporic intellectuals, such as Aime Césaire, Eduoard Glissant, and Hortense Spillers, who have theorized about the ocean’s primacy in the development of Black diasporic identity. The three poems “Negridiano,” “Freudiana,” and “Anatomía,” highlight the affective currents of a Black female subjectivity that understands itself in relation, always, to the natural and human world alike. Throughout my presentation I will argue that the ocean poetics inherent to Lívia Natália’s work exemplify a cosmocentric understanding of the Black diasporic self.
Daniela Serra Castilhos
Instituto Politecnico de Leiria - Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestão
As alterações climáticas e o Compromisso para um Consumo Sustentável
As alterações climáticas e a degradação do ambiente representam uma ameaça existencial para a Europa e o resto do mundo. O Compromisso para um Consumo Ecológico é a primeira iniciativa lançada no âmbito da Nova Agenda do Consumidor. Este projeto-piloto faz parte do Pacto Europeu para o Clima, uma iniciativa à escala da UE que convida as pessoas, as comunidades e as organizações a participarem na ação climática e a construírem uma Europa mais verde, conforme comunicação da União Europeia. Os cinco temas de compromisso principais são os seguintes: Calcular a pegada de carbono da empresa, Calcular a pegada de carbono de determinados produtos emblemáticos da empresa, Aumentar a venda de produtos ou serviços sustentáveis, Afetar parte das despesas das empresas em matéria de relações públicas à promoção de práticas sustentáveis, Assegurar que as informações prestadas aos consumidores em relação à empresa e às pegadas de carbono dos produtos.
João Manuel Casinhas Moucheira
University of Lisbon 's Law School
Title: tbc
My study analyses the political philosophy of Francisco de Vitoria, one of the most prominent philosophers/ theologians of the so called Iberian School of Peace, specifically his reflection about the jus communicationis, the right of communication between people of different parts of the world, in the context of a theorization about the legitimacy of the Spanish colonization of New World territories. This reflection is related to his vision on the legal foundation of international relations between republics, by placing the jus communicationis within the scope of the law of nations, which is simultaneously a derivation from natural law and positive law, created by republics for the governance of their relations. His theorization may be considered the origin of cosmopolitan law and cosmopolitism, as later theorized by Kant and some contemporary philosophers, but it may also be considered the origin of existing international human rights law, seen from a subjective perspective, as rights belonging originally to the individuals. Therefore, the study aims to demonstrate the contemporaneity of his philosophy, considering the future prospects of that law and given the current political, economic and cultural trends in the world.
João Motta Guedes
NOVA School of Law
Aesthetic impact on the people and the formation of a cosmopolitan consciousness: how do artworks foster human rights
This presentation argues that aesthetic creation, namely images and artworks, have a fundamental role to play regarding what concerns the formation of a cosmopolitan consciousness, that spreads in a variety of topics such as: ecological consciousness, human rights, and ideas of justice. It is through the “energeia” of images (Bredekamp) that these help to raise critical awareness (Brunkhorst) that is vital to the formation of this consciousness. Moreover, in the presentation there will be analysed authors such as Olafur Eliasson, Jenny Holzer, Anselm Kiefer, among others.
Manuel P. Fernandes
Centro de Estudos Bocageanos
Some notes on Bocage’s ecology of Divinity
The present communication will discuss Bocage’s way of viewing religious and social matters. After a short introduction on the author and contextualization of what has been done in the academic studies about bocage, we will address the relationship between God and the natural world present in Bocage’s thinking. We will resort primarily to the application of a close reading approach of authorial clandestine poems, such as the Pavorosa Ilusão da Eternidade and Epístolas de Olinda a Alzira, but not excluding some other deviations. After the association is established, we will discuss the relationship between Bocage’s view of god and his possible way of perceiving cosmopolitanism.
Marco Russo
University of Salerno
A Broad-Minded Way of Thinking. Cosmological Perspectives in Kantian Cosmopolitanism
I think it is useful to link cosmopolitanism back to its semantic root, the cosmos. This term allows for a reflection on the notion of the world with regard to terrestrial and celestial nature, as well as the notion of order. In this way, cosmopolitanism can also integrate the ecological theme into the traditional ethical-political approach and international law. Ecological issues today also extend beyond terrestrial borders, as evidenced by space-race and satellite colonisation of extra-terrestrial space. This is yet another reason to re-evaluate the cosmological tradition, which is by the way present in all major cultures. My paper will focus on Kant, who is one of the great fathers of modern cosmopolitanism but also an innovative heir to the Western cosmological tradition, as evidenced first and foremost by his early “Theory of Heaven” (1755). In the first part of my talk I will show what a philosophical cosmology is in a critical sense; in the second part I will indicate some applications of such a cosmology. Cosmology outlines the genesis of the physical and metaphysical idea of the world as “totality of all phenomena” (KrV AA III 289) and its articulations as ethical world (cosmopolitan community) and anthropic world (geo-historical environment). On the one hand, Kant dissolves the concept of the world as a given and independent entity; on the other, he emphasises precisely because of this the close epistemic, ethical and cultural relationship between man and the world. In this way, cosmology becomes a tool for analysing and unifying the different meanings of the world, increasing the conceptual competence of cosmopolitanism. It makes it clearer what we are talking about - and what we want to express - when we talk about the world. In the second part, I focus on the practice of cosmology. This practice consists in developing that mode of broad-minded way of thinking (erweiterte Denkungsart; KdU, AA V 294) which is the premise of any cosmopolitanism and for the formation of the citizen of the world, the one who realises the conceptus cosmicus of philosophy (KrV, AA III, 542). In fact, this way leads to overcoming the egocentric vision in order to learn to see things from a universal point of view (allgemeiner Standpunkt, KrV AA V 295), which allows to evaluate the dynamic field in which our action is situated and to find a guide to manage the oppositions that characterise it. As Kant put it: “While making oneself a fixed center of one's principles, one ought to regard this circle drawn around one as also forming part of an all-inclusive circle of those who, in their disposition, are citizens of the world” (MdS, AA VI 473). The dynamic field man-world has different and often antinomic levels; the crucial point is how to build an overall balancing view. Kantian cosmopolitanism is about this building, especially through an ethical and legal path. I will show that the development of an ecological consciousness is also an essential part of this path. Ecological consciousness is in fact equivalent to considering the Earth as a complex system strongly influenced by man. The Kantian cosmological perspective allows not only to enter the Earth as the part of cosmopolitanism, but also to go beyond the geo-anthropic sphere by considering the extra-terrestrial sphere. This perspective is not a leap to a transcendent vision of no relevance to man, but on the contrary strives to connect the different meanings of the world that cosmology has made explicit. Through a selective survey of the theme of the world in various Kantian texts (apart from the first Critique, which mainly elaborates the epistemic perspective), I will therefore show more specifically how cosmology helps to form a broad-minded way of thinking, which still remains human-centred but without being a victim of a narrow and dangerous anthropocentrism.
Marita Rainsborough
Leuphana University of Lüneburg / CFUL Lisbon
Parental Earth Ethics. Odera Oruka’s Principle of Global Justice and his Ecological Philosophy
Odera Oruka develops, in connection with his philosophy of nature, an environmental ethics and ecophilosophy based on his new conceived concept of globalization. His parental earth ethics, as Graneß states, “basically aims at the preservation of the whole world. Because of the subtle intertwining of social moments and our thinking, the fight against poverty is ultimately environmental policy, climate protection and security policy – all in one. The question of conserving the world, in turn, is inextricably linked to ensuring justice for every member of the community." (Graneß 2011: 116) The philosopher starts from global dependency relations that link different parts of the world in their destiny – according to the idea of a network of being – and the need for commitment to a global balance and global justice. In this context, he also refers to the obligation of rich states to provide an ethical minumum and support for development and speaks of a parental earth insurance policy, a kind of insurance or security policy for the welfare of the world. Odera Oruka's new ethics propagates an ethics of modesty and is directed both against an attitude of excessive consumption and against the lack of the most necessary, with its harmful effects for the world in general. Ethics is no longer conceived exclusively anthropocentrically, but rather ecocentrically.
Mendo Casto Henriques:
Faculdade de Ciências Humanas | School of Human Sciences Universidade Católica Portuguesa | Catholic University of Portugal
Isabelle Stengers and Bruno Latour: what cosmopolitics is about?
Messerschmidt-Mariet Quentin
Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne
Title tbc
Le cosmopolitisme, comme idéal de paix et de dépassement de l’hostilité, possède une marque fondamentale de la solidarité. Il peut, à cet égard, prolonger la théorie solidariste de Léon Bourgeois. Celui-ci évoque ainsi une « solidarité cosmique » [Bourgeois, 1896]. Ce solidarisme cosmopolitique est à la recherche d’un intérêt supérieur, qui dépasse alors les seules conditions économiques, sociales, sanitaires ou politiques. C’est un passage d’une interdépendance de fait, avec une communauté économique, écologique et politique internationale, vers une communauté de droit, avec des règles, des dettes communes et un respect pour ce qui fait que la communauté tient, en l’occurrence la communauté internationale. L’idée solidariste s’étend alors à l’échelle planétaire, trouvant son application au-delà du cadre de l’État-nation. C’est cette interdépendance de tous et de toutes, avec l’espace dans lequel chacun vit et évolue, qui confirme bien l’indépassable horizon cosmopolitique pour le solidariste. Cette dimension planétaire de la solidarité, si elle ne peut que prendre en compte les solidarités entre classe, entre genre ou entre race, ne peut pas écarter la solidarité écologique. Le solidarisme écologique peut se fonder sur l’idée d’une dette planétaire, confirmant l’idée d’une dépendance entière et des conséquences réciproques entre les actions de chacun, humains et non-humains. La Terre rentrerait directement dans l’étroite interdépendance des êtres et du milieu naturel, permettait de transformer l’avenir cosmopolitique de la solidarité en solidarisme écologique, ouvrant la voie à des applications nouvelles et pratiques pour la solidarité, à l’heure où le défi climatique et environnemental devient de plus en plus urgent.
Nuno Miguel Proença
CHAM - Centre for the Humanities, NOVA-FCSH
Embodied minds in a community of life: what does “cosmic interdependence” mean?
The kind of knowledge needed to achieve the understanding of the nature of the universe cannot be merely scientific. Instead, if we want to grasp the meaning of the phenomena that compose the whole world, we have to take our lived body into consideration, as it belongs to the phenomenal world considered by sciences but is also something else, from which we can derive an understanding of the essence of the manifestation. Such assumptions, which in many ways can be found in the works of Schopenhauer, Merleau-Ponty and Michel Henry, are also present in two of the original works of American philosopher and anthropologist David Abram ('The Spell of the Sensuous' and 'Becoming Animal'). To answer our question concerning the nature of cosmic interdependence, we would therefore like to draw from this author’s reflexions on the conditions for a needed metamorphosis in our relations with the living land and on the dependence of human cognition on the natural environment. In particular, we would like to analyse the reasons why, according to Abram, if we want to recover our understanding of a wider community of life, that includes humans and more-than-humans (animals, mountains, rivers, winds and weather patterns, oceans, stars...), we have to subvert the distance towards the wild intelligence of our bodies that keeps the living world aside, behind our scientific and technological representations, by exploring from within the elemental kinship between our minds and the breathing Earth.
Nuria Sánchez Madrid
Complutense University of Madrid
Title: tbc
Rui Sousa
CLEPUL
A libertinagem de Luiz Pacheco como inscrição do indivíduo na ecologia da comunidade humana
Ao longo da sua obra, Luiz Pacheco desenvolveu várias perspectivas sobre a noção de libertino e sobre a necessidade de actualizar o conceito no sentido de uma perspectiva sobre a condição humana num mundo desprovido de qualquer realidade supra-terrena. Nesta comunicação, equacionam-se dois aspectos importantes do pensamento de Pacheco: a distinção entre convivência e polémica, essencial a uma compreensão cosmopolita da contemporaneidade, e a definição da libertinagem como olhar antropológico sobre a singularidade humana no quadro mais amplo da natureza autopoiética.
Silvério Rocha-Cunha.
Escola de Ciências Sociais. Universidade de Évora
Eu e nós, mas sem o Outro.
O cosmopolitismo sempre surgiu como forma de organizar uma convivência ordenada e pacífica entre os humanos e as unidades políticas. Todavia, com a emergência do Antropoceno as sociedades humanas complexas passaram a viver por entre dilemas e incertezas. O estudo proposto pretende integrar questões frequentemente ocultas: não deve presidir a uma sociedade dialógica um olhar relativo ao Outro? Em que medida? Sob que condições? Qual o seu papel na política e na partilha do poder?