AIAS and CEH Reading Group: Abetting Everyday Harms
AIAS and the Centre for Environmental Humanities at Aarhus University have created a reading group titled 'Abetting Everyday Harms.' The group will focus on the concept of complicity through an interdisciplinary lens, with a particular focus on the environmental context. Interested participants from all disciplines are invited to join. Participants may attend all sessions or drop in to individual meetings.
On the Abetting Everyday Harms reading group
This reading group will explore the concepts of moral complicity (and implication, its close cousin) by bringing together writings from multiple disciplines such as literary studies, law, philosophy, cultural studies, sociology, and history. We are seeking similarly interdisciplinary reading group participants from all levels of seniority within and beyond the university.
Climate Change-related Complicity and Conceptual Complicity
Our exploration of complicity is focused on climate change, but at the same time draws from a broad and foundational conceptual base. This mixture is reflected in the readings, some of which are devoted to the concept of complicity itself and some of which are focused on climate in particular. The aim is to set a moderate and achievable amount of reading for shared interdisciplinary discussion which can act as a framework for further individual reading.
The initial few sessions will have set content but the organisers will welcome suggestions for additions later in the semester so that the program reflects collective interests as they develop.
Unexpected Complicity
We are particularly interested in the ways in which complicity shows up in unexpected ways in our life and work, and hope to think about what less complicit processes could look like. We are particularly interested in the role of cultural production and intellectual methodologies as sites of complicity and of its representation.
We aim to develop a framework for interdisciplinary discussion both of the problem of complicity and of how we might move beyond, through, or past it. We are interested not only in why we necessarily abet everyday harms, but also in how we might learn to abet them a little less.
TIMES AND DATES
- Friday 22 September 2023, 12:15 - 13:45
- Friday 27 October 2023, 12:15 - 13:45
- Friday 24 November 2023, 12:15 - 13:45
- Friday 8 December 2023, 12:15 - 13:45
- Friday 9 January 2024, 12:15 - 13:45
READINGS FOR THE FIRST SESSION
Readings for the first session are as follows (the chapter from Rothberg’s book is accessible in both ePub and PDF through the AU Library):
- Rothberg, Michael. 2019. ”Introduction: From Victims and Perpetrators to Implicated Subjects.” The Implicated Subject: Beyond Victims and Perpetrators. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Pages 1-28.
- Crownshaw, Rick. 2019. ”Climate Change Perpetrators: Ecocriticism, Implicated Subjects, and Anthropocene Fiction.” Susanne C. Knittel and Zachary J. Goldberg (eds.), The Routledge International Handbook of Perpetrator Studies. London: Routledge. Pages 228-240. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9781315102887/routledge-international-handbook-perpetrator-studies-zachary-goldberg-susanne-knittel
Subsequent months’ readings will be decided on consultation with the group’s participants at the first session.
LOCATION
Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS), room 301; except for the first session: please meet at the entrance of AIAS and we will go together to the third floor informal meeting space.
ORGANIZERS
Co-organised by AIAS-COFUND MSCA Fellow Bridget Vincent in collaboration with the Center for Environmental Humanities (CEH: https://ceh.au.dk/).
CONTACT
Dr Bridget Vincent, AIAS-COFUND II Fellow
bridgetvincent@aias.au.dk
Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies