Urszula Lisowska
4:30 pm | Baker-Nord Center, Clark Hall Room 206, 11130 Bellflower Road, Cleveland, OH 44106
Our anthropogenic planetary crisis - often referred to as the Anthropocene - presents a foundational political challenge. This means that addressing the planetary crisis not only requires political decisions and measures, but calls for reflecting on what politics is, including how (if at all) it is possible. These questions can be addressed in part through the concept of the world as a philosophical category. What is it to shape a common world that includes the planetary dimensions of Earth? Drawing on Hannah Arendt, as well as on Malcom Ferdinand's recent work in decolonial ecology, Lisowska defines the world as a network of the plurality of bodily beings and relationships. The concept she developed opens the way for thinking about politics as the activity of creating something common through relating across embodied differences. In her talk, Urszula Lisowska from the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Wroclaw, Poland, will show how this concept helps address the political challenge of the Anthropocene by developing an account of something called "relational agency," suggesting common but possibly diversified participation of human and other-than-human beings in politics, and the use of reflective judgement and wonder. Urszula Lisowska is a 2025 Hildegarde and Elbert Baker Visiting Scholar in the Humanities.
Registration requested. Register HERE.