[Liuhum] Hub news and new people to welcome!!

Thu Sep 5 09:59:54 CEST 2024

Dear Tema Genus, dear Hub-friends and colleagues at Tema and at LiU,

  *   I am so proud to introduce you all to the new guests, the new coordinator, and the new shapes and colours of The Posthumanities Hub here at Tema G! Here are a few excerpts of the exciting news from our team. (Dates for events come last, so brace for a long and informative email!)

  *   First of all, Caroline Elgh, Co-Director of the Hub is back on her feet! HURRAY!! She had a close encounter with the nonhuman powers by the sea around midsummer. Cyborgian with crutches and medicine, she will stay on part-time sick-leave a couple of months but is otherwise in full swing - exploring her new multispecies constitution (part shark, part bovine). I am so relieved and happy she is back with us. Welcome back Caroline!

This fall we have 3 visiting doctoral students - so say hi to them in our corridor! It is...

  *   Fatemeh Gholami, from ecocriticism she is exploring the geo-humanities turn to "ecospace" - and she is here from The University of the National Education Commission (UKEN) in Krakow, Poland, to integrate feminist theory and insights from gender studies and posthumanities. Of course she also knows our "old" friend, eco-hydro sexualities' Ewelina Jarosz - also from UKEN.

  *   Tamalone van den Eijnden, who explores the practices, politics and poetics of "commoning" biodiversity. Like many of us transnational feminists here at tema Genus, she has passed through the transformative passage of Utrecht University in media and performative arts (like our Cristl!). She works otherwise at Department of Science, Technology and Policy Studies at University of Twente.

  *   And next week, we welcome Camilla Bernava here from University of Napoli, Italy - again from scholarly interests in international relations, transnational feminisms and philosophical approaches to ecologies of knowledge. Especially feminist epistemologies and feminist theory of science, and how they meet with political ecology. The Hub is all about the "politica transversale" that Italian activist-feminists introduced for going visiting war-ridden and troubled places, bridge-building across borders and divides. (Check out feminist classics like Cynthia Cockburn, Adrienne Rich, and Rosi Braidotti to understand the transversal feminisms of The Posthumanities Hub and its arts and sciences for the wounds and wonders of the world!)

Me and Tuja are SO PLEASED TO WELCOME YOU THREE HERE, Fatemeh, Tamalone and Camilla!!

  *   Now, for those of you here at Tema that did not get introduced to Tuja Torvaldsson in May and June, do not miss out on this joyful encounter! Tuja is the new Hub-coordinator (40%), employed as amanuens and, while she already has banked a few MA-studies - in biology, international project management in the cultural industries, philosophy, and most recently, and MA in Human Resources from here at LiU - she is also a new student in our MA program Gender Studies - Intersectionality and Change! She is heavily into roller-derby, lesbian power and the transformative potential of the university - and of course feminist practices of posthumanities. I am so lucky to have her.

  *   Anna Hedberg, a new Hub co-creator, is the artist behind the face-lift of the Posthumanities Hub. Attaching our new Hub banner - and check here for how the sprawling community of the Posthumanities Hub has alternated its shapes and colours! https://posthumanitieshub.net/meet-the-group/ We are about 40 people co-creating the Hub, with funded and unfunded projects and with extensive Swedish and international networks. Societal cooperation, or "samverkan" in Swedish, is crucial to us.

  *   This is why we are so lucky to host Amanda Selinder<https://amandaselinder.com/> as our artist-in-residency until early 2026! Artist Amanda, a trained biologist as well, has won the prestigious national commission to re-imagine the Campus Valla streak "Corson" with her art. The Corson-project is a samverkan between Akademiska Hus, Statens Konstråd (Public art agency of Sweden) and Linköping University, and me and Caroline Elgh (student representative in the samverkansgrupp) are so happy to host Amanda in the Hub for Tema and Linköping university.

  *   Now, what's the "thing" with the Hub you may ask if you haven't followed the Posthumanities Hub since its inception here at Tema and LiU in 2008? Well, from Harawayian types of cyborg knowing (Åsberg 2024 in NORA) - admixing immanence ontology, situated epistemology and feminist ethics of vulnerability, care and affirmation - we practice more-than-human humanities, and more humane interdisciplinary humanities by "going visiting" (see Ursula LeGuin's fiction, in-field philosophy, and Hannah Arendt's idea) and the generous "arts of hosting" meetings, people, and conversations that matter. Regardless of discipline, university, national or other identitarian belonging. Of course, we are thus no strangers to the extra-academic world and to non-academic wisdom. We build scholarly capacity, transversally, across feminist philosophy, STS, cultural studies, citizen science and indigenous engineering, medical-, techno- multispecies and environmental humanities and sciences. Amidst such knowledge ecologies, we build trustful and accountable leadership for a changing world by unlearning exceptionalisms and learning how to "hospice modernity" (Vanessa Machado de Oliviera 2021). In that sense, the Posthumanities Hub is a research school and an incubator for the new type of scholars needed in the world, an ever-changing and transversal community, and a platform for networking. So we always welcome YOU - eg to webinars, events, workshops and co-creative processes and results.

  *   With regard to the Hub, I am quite keen to introduce you also briefly to Ombre Tarragnat, a phd-student from cool Laboratoire d'études de genre et de sexualité (LEGS), Paris 8 University, who hopes to physically work with us here at tema Genus in the spring 2025. Ombre is part of the coordinative Hub team with Caroline, Tuja and me, from France. Ombre (she/they) is into feminist philosophy and neurodiversity, and December 5, Ombre and me are doing a webinar "Contact Zones" where we hope you all can refresh or get acquainted with the continental theories from French and German traditions that gave post-phenomenology (the human and more-than-human ecologies of our embodied experience) to gender studies and other forms of norm-creative posthumanities.

Already done are eg the co-organized New Materialisms conference at University of Maynooth, Ireland in end August - themed on intersectionality and the creative industries. Our Tema Genus' Dominica, alongside Ewelina, Paola, Elin, Kim, Siobhan and myself made a splash - to keep us wet and thinking until next NM-conference in Granada 2026! Also done are UNESCO Chair event at University of Hyderabad in Sustainability and Vulnerability Studies and the SOLU event on AI, ML and synthetic biologies, but more is coming...

  *   Now, what's up this fall term? Here are some dates to save for our main events within The Posthumanities Hub:

  *   Wednesday 25/9 - 17.00-18.00 hrs Book launch over zoom! Contemporary Ecocritical Methods with editors Camilla Brundin Borg, Richard Wingård, Jorgen Bruhn - and e.g. Cecilia Åsberg. (See book launch poster attached)

  *   Thursday 26/9 - 13.15 - 15.00 hrs "Music, ecology, AI and feminist posthumanities", Hub webinar with Dr Elin Kanhov (KTH) - welcome to join and spread the word about this seminar!
Join Zoom Meeting: https://liu-se.zoom.us/j/7402234640?omn=66375358037

  *   Friday 18/10 - 10.15-12.00 hrs "AI and Artistic Imaginaries", a Hub webinar and online panel with Petra Jääskeläinen, Ewelina Jarosz, Justyna Gorowska, Elin Kanhov and other friends.

  *   Thursday 14/11 - 15.00- 17.00 A trans-atlantic Hub webinar with prof Stefan Helmreich (MIT) "Gendering of Waves" (we made friends with Stefan during the Gothenburgh Science Festival in April. I am involved in this citizen science festival on a yearly basis - as festival theme-setting scientific advisory board member, and guess what - all kinds of waves was this year's theme!)

  *   Thursday 5/12 - 15.00-17.00 "Contact Zones", the learning-opportunity (for those curious about feminist roots in French and German philosophies and post-phenomeology) of a Hub webinar organized by Ombre Tarragnat and myself. This will be a treat, and a chance to meet the undiscovered new thinkers of our times.

And besides that, we have the soil arts of Formas project Humus Economicus, and its exhibition<https://mailchi.mp/osterangenskonsthall/vernissageinbjudan-de-underjordiskas-karneval?fbclid=IwY2xjawFFA_RleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHa4vs1YD-Vmd4Y0FVEcQ8GfjNTo-Ix35bMq4rIlFYT0GnEbjiRubvSbPoA_aem__c5_oF5qzMHak76zFqqWsw> vernissage in Jönköping 13 September "De Underjordiskas Karneval" by artist-researcher Janna Holmstedt and team (attached flyer), the PhD defence of South African Joanne Peers in Oulu, Finland, and at Humanistdygnet me and Caroline Elgh will perform our Swedish talk on what's to discover of human and nonhuman, speculative and scientific, ocean critters. We promise to story the exposures of algae and talking dolphins!

To keep up with the Hub, visit our website<https://posthumanitieshub.net/> and follow us on social media.<https://www.facebook.com/PosthumanitiesHub> Importantly, feel very welcome!

Warmly,
Cecilia for the team of The Posthumanities Hub

[Linköping University]
Cecilia Åsberg (Phd, Professor)
Professor/Chair of Gender, Nature, Culture at Linköping University<https://liu.se/en/employee/cecas20>, Sweden
Director of The Posthumanities Hub www.posthumanitieshub.net<http://www.posthumanitieshub.net/>
Department of Thematic Studies - Gender Studies (Tema Genus)
Linköping University, 581 83 Linköping, Sweden
Phone: +46 (0)70 1918513; E-mail: cecilia.asberg at liu.se<mailto:cecilia.asberg at liu.se>

Please visit us at: https://liu.se/en/research/the-posthumanities-hub, and you can see up-dates or register for our webinars at  https://www.facebook.com/PosthumanitiesHub/

E-mailing Linköping University will result in Linköping University processing your personal data. Find more information on how this is done at https://liu.se/en/article/integritetspolicy-liu

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