Magdalena Hoły-Łuczaj
Roundtable Title: Challenges and Tensions of the Narratives from the Affective Anthropocene
Participants: Forrest Clingerman, Magdalena Hoły-Łuczaj, Silviya Serafimova & Patryk Szaj
Title: Uneasy Hope: on the need to appropriate being torn
Abstract: The landscape of the Anthropocene seems to be painted with darkness. As we look around we can see destruction, collapse, and loss. Yet, there are moments when we still believe that bright colors are not totally lost, or that they at least can come back. But isn’t that just a daydream?
In the talk, I shall explore those tensions by focusing on three axes. The first is stretched between grief and hope (not to lose any more species), the second one between guilt and hope (not to harm nature anymore), and the third one between a sense of injustice and hope (to be fair to nature and human fellows). Because hope appears in all those accounts, should we just focus on hope, in order to avoid being stuck in the paralyzing belief that nothing can be done to improve the current state of affairs? I shall argue that we cannot abandon the negative part of the emotionality of the Anthropocene, because our hope is naïve if we forget what informs it. The acknowledgement of all those tensions, contradictions, and ruptures make this (cautious) hope authentically our own.
Bio: Magdalena Hoły-Łuczaj is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszów. Her research interests focus on the crossroads of environmental ethics, philosophy of technology, and Heidegger.
