Wildness, Justice, and Aesthetics
Imaginaries of Future Urban Natures

Convened by

Tea Lobo
Early-Career Fellow 2021–2022

Details

Venue & accessibility info: Collegium Helveticum, Meridian Hall

This is a public event. Participation is free of charge. No registration is needed.

The event is followed by a small reception.

A new philosophy book on future urban natures, by former Early-Career Fellow Tea Lobo, meets discussants from the fields of ethics, history, urban studies, and philosophy of science.

The book surveys emerging ways of conceptualizing the relationship between the urban, the natural, and the wild. It reflects on why the concept of “nature” remains philosophically meaningful despite its contested history. The book also examines avant-garde approaches in urbanism and architecture that seek to conceive—and ultimately build—cities reconciled with nature in various ways. It analyzes possible issues of justice and aesthetics, alongside efforts to integrate the wild into the civic sphere of the city.

Program

Participants

Yael Borofsky is a postdoctoral researcher in spatial development and urban policy, and an affiliate of the Development Economics Group at ETH Zurich, specializing in research on informal settlements.

Michael Hampe Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at ETH specialized in philosophy of biology, pragmatism, history of early modern philosophy, and philosophy as a form of life.

Niklas Kirchner is doctoral researcher in Practical Philosophy at the ETH Zurich

Tea Lobo is the author of Wildness, Justice and Aesthetics, private lecturer in Practical Philosophy at the ETH Zurich, secondary school teacher of nature & technology, and partner for individual and collective philosophical elucidations. She was an early-career fellow at the Collegium in 2021–2022.

Nadia Mazouz is Professor of Practical Philosophy at the ETH Zurich and specialist for justice theories, philosophy beyond the European canon, pluralism and nonanthropocentrism.

Ezra Rashkow is an historian of modern South Asia, with a focus on indigenous experiences in modernity and debates about biological and cultural diversity. He is associate professor at Montclair State University (US) and currently senior fellow at Collegium Helveticum.