Přednáška: Rethinking (our) Nature. Looking for meaning in belonging

The usual meaning we find for our lives is difficult to sustain when we consider the infinite vastness of the Universe - our lives appear not just contingent, but senseless as specks on another revolving speck in an infinite Universe (that may be just one of multiple universes!). At the same time, when we consider the almost inconceivably tiny quantum reality - the electrons and protons that make up everything - meaning as constituted in our macroscopic dimension loses its structures of intelligibility: the laws that are the basis of our reason (like the law of identity) no longer apply (when electrons cross boundaries between things and singular placement).

Just as birth and death are fundamentally constitutive of our being - ontologically so -, what articulation can we find for our placement within these two strange domains - infinite space, and particle formation?

In this talk, I will explore, with Karen Barad’s work, how thinking of the quantum makeup of our world can help us rethink our own existence and how we are a part of nature. Barad’s work is situated within a critique of the nature-culture distinction, a position also voiced by other feminist thinkers (Kirby, Haraway), leading to a rethinking of “Nature”.