The Cosmologies Workgroup symposium “Thinking in Cosmology” takes heed of Yanomami shaman Davi Kopenawa’s call for a cosmopolitics when he declares that “For us, politics is something else”. In doing so, we envision this 2-day symposium as an experimental, collective work of imagining politics otherwise. We aim to problematize the modern, Western cosmology, its ontology (i.e. epistemology), and perspective (i.e. anthropocentric). 

The concerns will range from those in environmental ecology, notably the bifurcation of nature and its ramifications for bodies of nature and nonhuman entities, to the mental ecology, notably questions on the spiritual and its different apparitions in shape of ghosts, specters, and spirits, and in between the social ecology, with questions of power, relations, and more widely peoples. We will ask how these concerns inflect back into the approaches and methods of anthropology, philosophy, and cultural studies that we study with. 

The symposium is divided into four nodes with their respective blocks: cosmopolitics I & II, cosmovisions and cosmotechnics. Each has their respective concerns and a primary, nodal text for the participants to engage with.

A provisional programme/schedule for the event;

25th of March - 10:00 - 13:00: Cosmopolitics I (human non-human, animism, diplomacy, power, relations) – participants: Halbe Kuipers (UvA); Nienke Scholts (UvA); Matthias de Groof (UA)

25th of March - 14:00 - 17:00: Cosmovisions (arts, sensations, practices, myth, storytelling) – Xinyi Zheng (UvA); Patricia Pisters (UvA); Brian Trinada Kusuma Adi (UvA); Martina Griessing Valsecchi (UvA)

26th of March - 10:00 - 13:00: Cosmopolitics II (earth, land, territories, world-beings, STS networks) – Diego Cagüeñas Rozo (UvA); Jasmijn  Leeuwenkamp (UvA); Chen Zhou (UvA); Natalia Giraldo Jaramillo (UvA)

26th of March - 14:00 - 17:00: Cosmotechnics (cybernetics, technologies, mediation, technicity) – Sara Gelao (UvA); Jie Shen (UvA); Erica Biolchini (McGill); Xichen Liu (UvA)

Students can register to participate for ECTS (limited spots available).

-1 ECTS: participation in symposium + readings for each node

-2 ECTS: participation in symposium + readings for each node + short paper (3k words) in response to one selected node.

To participate, email: h.h.kuipers@uva.nl & d.caguenasrozo@uva.nl