Program Overview

Program Overview

The seminar explores the Anthropocene hypothesis and its implications on contemporary law and legal thinking. It delves into the concept of appropriation as a foundational legal and social technique, prompting a reevaluation of responsibility and justice between localities and generations.

Program Description

The Anthropocene hypothesis suggests that human action has significantly altered the Earth, rivaling the agency of geomorphological forces. This seminar examines how the Anthropocene hypothesis engages or challenges basic premises of contemporary law and legal thinking, including the understanding of the 'ecological' relation between norms and nature, the definition of the community within which norms take effect, and time or temporality.

Indicative Reading List

• Christophe Bonneuil & Jean-Baptiste Fressoz: The Shock of the Anthropocene (2016)
  • This book provides a comprehensive overview of the Anthropocene hypothesis and its implications.
• Donna Haraway: Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (2016)
  • This work explores the concept of kinship in the context of the Anthropocene.
• Bruno Latour: Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime (2017)
  • This book presents a series of lectures on the new climatic regime and its implications for human society.
• Bruno Latour: Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime (2018)
  • This work examines the political implications of the new climatic regime.
• Andreas Malm: Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming (2016)
  • This book provides a historical analysis of the rise of steam power and its contribution to global warming.