Title：Living On: Ecosophical Futures in Recent French Writing
Abstract：The planetary instability collectively referred to as the Anthropocene, whether manifesting dramatically as climate change, pandemic emergency, or globalisation crisis, is forcing belated recognition not only of economic and socio-political assumptions and blind-spots but equally of related frameworks and privileges still inhering in ethical criticism. This talk therefore situates itself within the broader scope of considerations of crisis in a designedly phenomenological sense, as an articulation of radical and necessary uncertainty that seeks in both scientific and psychological ways to speak to the transcendental nature of our ethical relation to and in the lifeworld. The talk’s precise focus relies on recent French-language writings whose ‘ecosophical’ tenor also questions and expands the categorisations and hierarchies determining what is presented as pertinent or decisive philosophical literature. Beginning with key positions and questions from Michel Serres and Bruno Latour, the talk therefore offers critical reactions to a range of ethical approaches to nature, the non-human, and bioethics that emphasize common planetary fragility, by authors such as Didier Debaise, Emanuele Coccia, Baptiste Morizot or Corine Pelluchon.
Bio：Professor Seán Hand is Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Europe) and Professor of French Studies at the University of Warwick, UK. His research background is in reflexive or philosophical writings in French. He holds degrees from the University of Oxford (B.A., M.A., D. Phil.) and Warwick (MBA, D.Litt.). He is a Chevalier des Palmes Académiques and a member of the Academia Europæa. He is an Honorary Professorial Fellow and International Advisory Board member of Zhejiang University, a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He has assessed for the Irish Research Council, the Israel Science Foundation, the South African National Research Foundation, and the French National Higher Education authority HCÉRES, and has acted as an MSCA Vice-Chair for the European Commission. He sits on several international advisory boards, such as the Global@Venice project at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, and acts as a trustee and mentor.