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This symposium seeks to investigate how information processing, cognition, and other forms of sensing and making sense occur at different scales, and how the ways of understanding these scales inform and deform one another across the contemporary earth and life sciences.

Organized by Maria Dębińska, Magdalena Krysztoforska, Julia Sánchez-Dorado, Ben Woodard

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Scientists and policy makers typically think about the consequences of climate change in terms of discrete local ‘impacts’ that are extrapolated from global models. Implicit is the assumption that change begins on the global level, setting the parameters to which local communities must reactively adapt.

Part of the symposium Scales of Life

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For centuries, people  — both misanthropes and humanists alike  —  have compared Earth’s life to a ‘sludge’ clinging to our planet’s crust. Stephen Hawking memorably called the human race ‘chemical scum’ clinging cravenly to a spinning rock. Is biology merely a mold or planetary fungal infection? Answering this question depends on the evaluation of the stature of sludge.

Part of the symposium Scales of Life

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Queer Post-Cinema: Reinventing Resistance offers a novel perspective on the subject of queer cinema, highlighting the interplay between the cinematic dispositif and digital media in post-cinema. The conversation between Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky and Katrin Pahl will focus on the field’s connection with subjectivation as linked to sexuality.

With Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky and Katrin Pahl

Organized by ICI Berlin and ICI Berlin Press

Livestream available
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The conference explores the powerful role of affect and emotion in driving social and political mobilization. It examines the dynamics of affect in prompting (political) action, shaping activist practices, and sustaining social movements. In the context of global crises, disputes over inequalities, identities, and rights are intensifying, while affects and emotions are increasingly becoming subjects of negotiation and social conflict.

The conference is organized by the Collaborative Research Center 1171 ‘Affective Societies’, FU Berlin, in cooperation with the TU Dresden research project ‘Image Protests on Social Media’ and ICI Berlin.

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While one knows that part of right-wing populist appeal relies on its mobilization of affect – what Judith Butler describes as ‘fascist passions’ (2024) – people often struggle to delineate or harness affect for alternative, progressive projects. This talk asks how to generate solidarity and alternative affective investment for our times, drawing on Hemmings work on ‘affective dissonance’.

Part of the conference Mobilizing Affect – Affective Mobilization

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