Interdisciplinary workshop on the topic ‘Ecologizing Urban Ontologies in the Anthropocene’

The Munich Center for Technology in Society (MCTS) invites you to a public event we are holding on November 17th. In cooperation with the Rachel Carson Center of LMU we organise an interdisciplinary workshop on the topic ‘Ecologizing Urban Ontologies in the Anthropocene’.

When: 17th of November from 9am to 1pm
Where: Vorhölzerforum, 5th floor (Institutsbau, Arcistr. 21, room nr. 5170)

In the two panels, as indicated by grouping the speakers below, we will have plenty of time for discussion with a hopefully rich interdisciplinary audience and serve Coffee in between.

• Prof. Dr. Matthew Gandy, urban geographer at Cambridge University will introduce us to his research on ‘Saproxylic Geographies and other-than-human Ecologies’.
• Prof. Dr. Meike Wolf, medical anthropologist from Goethe University in Frankfurt, will talk on ‘Invasive Species and the politics of urban disease’.
• Felix Remter M.A., visual anthropologist at MCTS/TUM, will speak on ‘Apoidean Urbanization and the Heat Island’.
• Prof. Dr. Helmuth Trischler, head of research at the Deutsches Museum and director of RCC, will share insights into his research on ‘the Anthropocene and Urban Metabolism.
• Prof. Dr. Ignacio Farías, urban anthropologist at HU Berlin, will talk about ‘Local Warming and Experimental Urban Politics’.
• Dr. Sandra Jasper, film producer and geographer at Cambridge University, will talk about ‘urban wastelands as experimental spaces’.

Abstract of the Keynote by Prof. Dr. Matthew Gandy:
The discovery of a rare fly in a North London cemetery marks my entry point into a wider reflection on the value and significance of urban biodiversity. Using different indices of ecological endangerment, along with a critical reading of new materialist insights, this presentation explores the cultural, political, and scientific significance of saproxylic (rotten wood) invertebrate communities in an urban context. The discussion brings the fields of urban ecology and post-humanism into closer dialogue to illuminate aspects to urban nature that have not been systematically explored within existing analytical frameworks. We consider a series of intersecting worlds, both human and non-human, as part of a glimpse into saproxylic dimensions to urban nature under a putative transition to a new geo-environmental epoch.

The evening before we are welcoming you to the screening of Prof. Dr. Matthew Gandy’s documentary film ‘NATURA URBANA’.