Radboud Philosophical Facutly Journal

Auteur: bestuursplijtstof@gmail.com

  • Uses of Dialogue; or, Why We Love Plato

    The author would like to thank Kyrke Otto and the Splijtstof editorial team for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper.

    Why do we love Plato? To the historian of philosophy, this must come across as a strange, if not out-of-place question. Not because he or she would necessarily deny its premise, but because our affective ties to the works of Plato are considered to be a private rather than a professional affair. Let us therefore slightly displace the question: why, after almost twenty-five centuries, do we still read Plato? Why is he still so prominent in philosophical research and study programs? Responses to such questions generally resort to one of two arguments, or a combination of those:

    (1) We still read Plato because of the decisive theoretical and methodological mark he left on the further course of the history of philosophy. As The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has it: ‘‘Plato […] is, by any reckoning […] one of the most […] influential authors in the history of philosophy’’ (Kraut 2022). In every historical period, philosophers have deemed Plato to be a valuable or even indispensable interlocutor. And as the Encyclopaedia Britannica endorses: Plato is ‘‘best known as the author of philosophical works of unparalleled influence’’ (Meinwald 2023). I will call this the historical resonance account. It is exemplified by Whitehead’s renowned witticism that ‘‘the European philosophical tradition […] consists of a series of footnotes to Plato’’ (Whitehead 1978, 39).

    (2) We still read Plato because his arguments remain an indispensable point of reference in contemporary discourse. This rationale is illustrated by the effort of ancient philosophy scholars to reinsert and reevaluate Plato’s arguments in new contexts (such as his arguments against democracy in the context of political epistemology [Nawar 2023]). I will call this the argumentative touchstone account. The aim of this paper, then, is twofold: first, to demonstrate that both of these accounts are reductionistic; and second, to develop a more comprehensive justification for why we still read Plato’s dialogues today.

    Such a comprehensive account is warranted because the present-day significance of Plato extends far beyond his historical importance and the relevance of his arguments. Departing from such theoretical accounts, I will turn to the work of literary scholar Rita Felski to sketch the contours of an aesthetic rather than theoretical account of why we still read Plato today: an account that revives the literary character of the Platonic dialogues so often neglected in philosophy. Felski’s work is well suited for such a task, since her intellectual project may be described as an attempt to supplement the detachment of academic practices of interpretation with the attachment characterizing our ordinary engagement with texts and other artworks (see e.g. Felski 2008; 2020). In remainder of this paper, I will employ parts of this project to argue that both the historical resonance account (§1) and the argumentative touchstone account (§2) fail to do justice to the rich aesthetic experience reading Plato is. Subsequently, I take inspiration from Felski’s theory of attachment to highlight some of the affective responses involved in the encounter with Plato’s dialogues (§3).

    This paper is one of the first to transpose Felski’s efforts within the domain of philosophy. My hypothesis is that Plato is perhaps one of the best authors for doing so, since, as Vittorio Hösle remarks, his dialogues constitute a bridge between literary studies and philosophy in that the philosophical dialogue is, after all, a literary genre (Hösle 2012, xv-xvi). I will engage more extensively with Hösle’s study of the Platonic dialogues later. For now, I would like to warn the reader that this paper is not about interpreting the dialogues of Plato. Rather, it is about describing what these dialogues do (i.e. what responses they incite in the reader) and why they matter. Since Felski initially captured her project under the heading Uses of Literature, I have called the project initiated in this paper Uses of Dialogue.

    §1. From Historical Resonance to Present-Day Relevance

    That Plato is one of the most influential thinkers in the history of philosophy is undeniable. In nearly every period, from ancient to contemporary philosophy, his works gained traction as objects of inspiration, critique, commentary, exegesis, parody, deconstruction, and so on. Nevertheless, as an explanation for why we still read Plato today, such a historical resonance account is insufficient, because it relies on a narrow concept of history. In this section, I will argue for this claim by drawing on Felski’s article “Context Stinks!”, that tries to break the spell of the text/context distinction she believes is holding literary studies captive. My focus, however, will be on another central distinction in this text: the one between past and present.

    Within philosophy programs, students’ first systematic encounter with Plato often takes place in a course on the history of ancient philosophy. The founding father of philosophy is situated in ancient Greece, alongside Socrates, Aristotle, the Athenian agora and democracy, the Peloponnesian War and the Greek pantheon at Mount Olympus. This is to say that Plato is located in his historical context, which is in many respects utterly different from our times. Literary scholar Wai Chee Dimock calls this phenomenon “synchronic historicism,” since a text and its meaning are deemed to be coextensive with their original context of production. “The object of inquiry is dated,” Dimock (1997, 1061) writes. “Its reference points are events that began and ended in its original context.’’ According to Felski, such a model of history takes context to be “a kind of box or container in which individual texts are encased and held fast” (Felski 2011, 577).

    However, the historical resonance account goes beyond synchronic historicism, because it draws our attention to the fact that Plato’s ideas crossed the borders of ancient philosophy to resonate in other historical periods. This is reflected institutionally in that the name Plato often resurfaces in both historical and systematic philosophy courses in the wake of ancient philosophy. In this sense, the historical resonance account comes close to what Dimock calls “diachronic historicism,” which depicts texts as time travelers that speak differently to new historical audiences (cf. Dimock 1997, 1061ff). On this account, however, history is still perceived as a “vertical pile of neatly stacked boxes” (Felski 2011, 577) we tend to refer to as the past in contradistinction with the present.

    Having arrived at this point, we begin to see in what sense the historical resonance account is reductionistic. Although it can very well explain the relevance of Plato for understanding the history of philosophy, it is hard-pressed to give an account of how Plato is able to create attachments in the present. With its gaze turned towards to the past, the historical resonance account fails to provide an answer to questions related to the present-day relevance of texts:

    Why has this work been chosen for interpretation? How does it speak to me now? What is its value in the present? To focus only on a work’s origins is to side-step the question of its appeal to the present-day reader. It is, in a Nietzschean sense, to use history as an alibi, a way of circumventing the question of one’s own attachments, investments, and vulnerabilities as a reader (Felski 2008, 10).

    Note that Felski does not consider history unimportant. The historical resonance account is not wrong, but incomplete, in so far as it evades “the question of why past texts still matter and how they speak to us now” (Felski 2011, 577). Hence, it cannot fully account for why we read Plato today.

    In addition to its focus on present relevance rather than past resonance, Felski’s theory is also better equipped to explain Plato’s present-day appeal because of its concept of agency. The historical resonance account downgrades the agency of a text in favor of the explanatory power of context:[1] the reception of Plato in the middle ages, for example, is often explained by reference to the theological concerns that were central to the time, rather than the ability of Plato’s dialogues to elicit emotions and affections. In Felski’s account, the center of gravity is shifted to the agency or power of texts. Drawing on Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory – originally developed as a methodology for social science studies –, Felski proposes to see texts as non-human actors rather than as objects to be explained (cf. Felski 2011, 582ff). This revaluation of agency then allows Felski to explain why some texts survive, and others disappear. That is, quite simply, because the former are much better at establishing connections: “Artworks can only survive and thrive,” Felski remarks, “by making friends, creating allies, attracting disciples, inciting attachments, latching on to receptive hosts” (Felski 2011, 584). But how do Platonic dialogues do this?

    §2. From Theoretical Interpretation to Aesthetic Attachment

    How do Plato’s dialogues create attachments? What is it in these ancient works that attracts present-day readers? We have arrived at the preliminary conclusion that for answering such questions, resorting to historical resonance is insufficient, since it fails to account for Plato’s contemporary appeal. Hence, we might better focus our attention on the dialogues themselves. In this respect, the argumentative touchstone account seems to be a better candidate than the historical resonance account to explain why we still read Plato’s dialogues today. This account emphasizes that since the arguments of Plato’s Socrates are still relevant for contemporary concerns and discourses, one should definitely take note of them within philosophical research and education. In this section, I will argue that such reasoning is aesthetically reductionistic, by drawing on Felski as well as others.

    Why is the argumentative touchstone account reductionistic? First of all, because it tends to reduce Plato’s dialogues to their argumentative content. As the philosopher Lawrence M. Hinman has suggested in the 1980s, this tendency may very well be the product of the wide-spread assumption among especially analytic philosophers that “a philosopher’s style is, at best, something which obscures the structure of his arguments”. As a result, Hinman notes, some historians of philosophy tend to purify a philosopher’s oeuvre of its stylistic elements:

    While no one claims that Plato was writing pieces for Analysis, many read and write about him as though he were doing precisely that. In a curious version of the patchwork thesis, the dialogues come to be treated as an aggregate of three and one half page articles which were presumably gathered together for Oxford University Press (Hinman 1980, 512).[2]

    In this passage, Hinman mobilizes an equally widespread assumption among philosophers: that in isolating the argumentative content of Plato’s dialogues something essential gets lost; something which is often referred to as form, style, or more generally: poetics or aesthetics.

    Hösle provides additional support for this assumption in his juxtaposition of theoretical and aesthetic analysis. Acknowledging that the Platonic dialogues have an aesthetic quality, he counts them among a small group of “philosophical texts that must be enjoyed as works of art, that is, to which injustice is rendered if only their argumentative content is analyzed” (Hösle 2012, 2; my emphasis).[3] This group includes texts that obviously are about something, such as rhetoric or poetry, but also have a rhetoric or poetic quality themselves. Plato’s Phaedrus is a strong example of this.

    However, this is not to say that a theoretical analysis of, for example, Plato’s Phaedrus would be irrelevant. The Platonic dialogues do contain truth claims that any scholarly engagement with them should respect and account for. Hence the argumentative touchstone account is, just like the historical resonance account, not wrong, but incomplete, in that it rules out the aesthetic features of Plato’s work. Yet, these aesthetic features might not only be pivotal for explaining the present-day appeal of Plato, but also, as Hösle points out, for understanding his arguments in the first place, for example when literary devices are used to bestow certain claims with greater authority than others. Hence, the argumentative touchstone account is founded on a denial of its own conditions of possibility.

    Felski’s analyses, in turn, render the argumentative touchstone account reductionistic in yet another, and perhaps even more radical sense. By operating at the level of the encounter between reader and text rather than that of the form and/or content of the latter, they debunk academic analysis, of both a theoretical and aesthetic nature, as just one aspect of our aesthetic engagements. This insight is first articulated in Uses of Literature, where “knowledge” is only one type of textual engagement amongst many others, such as recognition, enchantment, and shock. From this perspective, the argumentative touchstone account diminishes the Platonic dialogues to a source of knowledge – something which they obviously are, but not exclusively. Now this also means that the cognitive aspects of aesthetic response are absolutized at the expense of many affective ones (cf. Felski 2020, 16, et passim). As such, Plato’s lively corpus becomes a corpse; a dead body to be dissected (Felski 2020, 152).

    However, Uses of Literature packs less of a punch than it could possibly deliver in the face of the argumentative touchstone account. This it because it fails to explain how the forms of textual engagement that it describes are connected. Hooked, Felski’s latest book, rectifies this shortcoming by revealing how interpretation and attachment, for example, are intertwined. Against the widespread view “that attachment is an obstacle to interpretation,” Felski argues that it is actually its condition of possibility: “What we choose to decipher, how we decipher it, and to what end—these decisions are driven by what we feel affinity for, what resonates. Interpreting is far from being a purely cognitive exercise” (Felski 2020, 126, 128). Affection precedes interpretation, given, of course, that one is free to choose what to read, interpret, and write about.

    In this sense, the argumentative touchstone account simply defers the question of why we still read Plato today. It emphasizes that Platonic arguments are an indispensable reference point for contemporary scholarship, but it does not explain how we are driven to these arguments and the literary worlds in which they appear in the first place. To develop a comprehensive account of why Plato is so successful in “making friends, creating allies, attracting disciples, inciting attachments, latching on to receptive hosts” – to reprise an earlier quote –, it seems we must turn our attention to the affective rather than cognitive aspects of our engagement with Plato.

    §3. From Authorial Intent to Readerly Response 

    In the preceding sections, I argued that both (1) the historical resonance account and (2) the argumentative touchstone account are reductionistic. Indeed, Plato is markedly influential in the history of philosophy, but what about his present-day appeal? Sure, Plato’s dialogues give us much to interpret, “but what about love?”, we might ask. “Or: “Where is your theory of attachment?” (Felski 2015, 17).[4] The upshot of our inquiry up to now has been that understanding Plato’s appeal requires an analysis of the affective responses involved in reading his dialogues. In this section, I will take a first step in this direction, by drawing on Hösle’s aesthetic analysis of the Platonic dialogues to elicit and explain such readerly responses. My hypothesis is that it is because of its literary qualities – use of characters, setting, style, etc. – that Plato’s oeuvre is so successful in creating attachments in present-day readers, and academics in particular. 

    First of all, what is attachment? Felski provides a bridge between the previous section and this one when she connects the supposed detachment of the academic world with a definition of attachment. “In its most obvious sense,” Felski writes, “attachment denotes an emotional tie: whether passions and obsessions or low-key moods and lukewarm likes.” A little later, she adds: “Against the usual portrayal of academia as an affect-free zone, I would venture that affective ties are often stronger in academia than elsewhere” (Felski 2020, 28). Against this background, let us now consider the case of Hösle’s study of the Platonic dialogues in a little more detail, since he holds an ambivalent position with regard to the affective power of Plato’s writings.

    In his capacity as reader, Hösle is clearly affected, inspired, or energized by the dialogues of Plato. He uses words like “overwhelming,” “fascinating,” and “astonishing,” to describe the experience of reading Plato, which seem to designate not just a cognitive tie, but also an emotional or affective one. And Hösle makes no secret of his appreciation of Plato when he writes about the Charmides and Euthydemus that “they are so perfect that one is sometimes astonished that a human being was able to compose them” (Hösle 2012, 432). However, in his capacity as a scholar, Hösle does not account for this aesthetic experience. Most of the book is devoted to a formal analysis of the dialogues and their relation to the intentions of the composer (Plato). Thus, it treats the relation between the dialogues and their effect on the reader only indirectly, while from a Felskian perspective, affective readerly responses trigger such formal analyses of authorial intent in the first place: they are its unacknowledged condition of possibility.

    It is about time, then, that we shift the center of gravity from authorial intent to readerly response; from aesthetic qualities to aesthetic experience. In doing so, we must not dwell on the cognitive dimensions of this experience. Admittedly, Plato’s dialogues incite us to think; they provide us with an indispensable philosophical vocabulary, but they also make us feel; they speak to our senses. Therefore, a comprehensive account of why we still read Plato today should “begin to engage the affective and absorptive, the sensuous and somatic qualities of aesthetic experience” (Felski 2011, 76). In the remainder of this section, I will therefore single out three types of textual engagement with Plato, combining the work of Hösle and Felski: (1) identification, (2) enchantment, and (3) shock. We might also call these aesthetic responses uses of dialogue.[5]

    (1) Plato’s dialogues enable readers to identify with its characters. Though many of Plato’s characters were real historical persons, their realism is not a precondition for identification. “The draw of character,” Felski (2020, 80) notes, “has far less to do with realism than with qualities of vividness and distinctiveness,” and Plato is very good at staging both vivid and distinctive characters. Consider, for example, the speakers in Plato’s Symposium: Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon, Socrates, and Alcibiades. Each of them gives not just a distinctive speech about eros, but also has some character quirks of its own: standing still at random times (Socrates), being a weak (Eryximachus) or a strong drinker (Aristophanes), hitting on Socrates (Alcibiades), etc. It is precisely because of such literary descriptions that Plato’s writings are able to forge affective ties, from scholars identifying with Socrates’ lofty philosophical character to feeling compassion for Phaedo, Crito, or Apollodorus, when they are unable to restrain their tears at the moment this same character is forced to drink his cup of poison. Yet another example would be the famous part of the Meno where Socrates guides an enslaved boy in solving a geometry problem to show that learning is merely recollection. Socrates’ step-by-step instruction invites the reader to identify with this enslaved boy, thus making it easier to be convinced by Plato’s arguments for the immortality of the soul. Plato’s use of the literary genre of the philosophical dialogue is indispensable for rendering such forms of identification possible. While in Aristotle’s Metaphysics (and many other works of philosophy for that matter), there is little to identify with, Plato’s dialogues offer a wide range of possibilities for identification.

    (2) Plato’s dialogues also have a distinctive capacity to enchant their readers. “Immersed in the virtual reality of a fictional text, a reader feels herself to be transported, caught up, or swept away” (Felski 2011, 34-5). In just a few paragraphs, Plato takes us to the Greek wrestling school (Lysis), Socrates’ death cell (Phaedo), the Athenian countryside (Phaedrus), or a formal drinking party (Symposium), offering us – for the time of reading – an escape to another world. Noteworthy, too, is the setting of the Laws, where the dialogue takes place during a pilgrimage from the city of Knossos to the temple of Zeus on Mount Ida, and that of the Protagoras. Before going to the home of Callias, where the great sophist Protagoras is staying, Socrates first needs to calm down his younger friend Hippocrates, who knocked on his door in the middle of the night to go and see Protagoras. During this initial discussion, it is difficult not to be affected by Hippocrates’ excessive excitement about Protagoras being in town. Interestingly enough, Hösle often invokes this “use” of the Platonic dialogues, such as when he remarks, though in passing, that Plato’s Symposium “still enchants us almost 2,400 years later” (Hösle 2012, 461). Another example can be found in his discussion of the Phaedrus in the chapter devoted to “The Space of Conversation.” In this dialogue, Hösle (2012) claims – again in passing –, “Plato offers one of the most enchanting descriptions of a landscape in all of Greek literature, which appeals in a few lines to the senses of sight, smell, taste, and hearing” (224). Here, it is Plato’s use of setting, which is a stylistic or literary device, that evokes the (sensuous) readerly response of enchantment.

    (3) Plato’s dialogues, however, can also trigger aesthetic responses that are less pleasant: they can disturb or even shock us. Such responses can result from the extremity of positions defended by some of Plato’s characters, such as Thrasymachus in the Republic and Callicles in the Gorgias, who forcefully argue for the reason of the strongest. Or, they may be triggered by certain performative contradictions, such as when Socrates condemns writing at the end of the Phaedrus, while the reader has approximately 35 dialogues at their disposal that were written by Plato. Furthermore, disturbance or shock can also be the result of a clash between our current ethical milieu and the one in which the dialogue we are reading is embedded. Examples that come to mind are the references to enslaved people in Plato’s dialogues, and his treatment of the task and place of woman in the Republic, where Plato’s Socrates argues that they must be the joint property of the guardians (not to mention Socrates’ ideas about state-regulated human reproduction). Yet, as Hösle remarks, Plato’s position as an author may very well be ambiguous in such cases, as an initial disturbance or shock can be followed by a moment of critical reflection. “Plato doubtless considered the institution of slavery justified,” he writes, “but by showing that the slave in the Meno is capable of anamnesis, he unintentionally forces the reflective reader to ask why some people may be held as slaves, even if their intellectual gifts are not essentially different from those of free persons” (Hösle 2012, 461). This is an excellent example of how affective and cognitive responses; feeling and thought can become intertwined in the aesthetic experience of reading Plato’s dialogues.

    In fact, Felski is well-aware that neatly separating different aesthetic responses or textual engagements fails to do justice to their relatedness and complexity. “I venture that aesthetic value is inseparable from use,” she notes at the beginning of Uses of Literature, “but also that
    our engagements with texts are extraordinarily varied, complex, and often unpredictable in kind” (Felski 2011, 8). The three responses I discussed should therefore be elaborated and expanded upon, in order to provide a more comprehensive account of how Plato captures, enchants, shocks, interests, entertains, arouses, surprises, moves, and obsesses us – or at least many of us.

    Conclusion

    In this paper, I have mobilized the work of literary scholar Rita Felski to argue that both the historical resonance account and the argumentative touchstone account are deficient in their answer to the question why we still read Plato today. Furthermore, I have developed a more comprehensive justification for why Plato features so prominently in philosophical research and study programs. According to the historical resonance account, we still read Plato today because of the decisive mark he left on the further course of the history of philosophy. This answer is reductionistic, in that it fails to account for why Plato appeals to us in the present.

    According to the argumentative touchstone account, we continue to study Plato because his

    arguments remain for us an indispensable point of reference. This response is reductionistic as well, in at least two respects. First, in that it reduces the dialogues to their argumentative content, thus leaving their aesthetic features and appeal unaccounted for. Second, in that it reduces our textual engagement with Plato’s dialogues to one of theoretical interpretation. Hence, it fails to account for our affective rather than cognitive ties to the writings of Plato.

    Vittorio Hösle’s study of the literary genre of the philosophical dialogue turned out to be a necessary, but insufficient condition for explaining Plato’s present-day appeal. Necessary, because he goes beyond the historical resonance account and the argumentative touchstone account in focusing on the form rather than the content of the Platonic dialogues. Insufficient, because he connects the aesthetic features of the dialogues solely to authorial intent. That is, according to Hösle, we still read Plato today because he is such a magnificent writer. In the end, this answer is reductionistic as well, because it fails to account for the relation between the literary character of Plato’s work and the affective responses it triggers in the reader. My hypothesis was that it is because of its literary qualities – use of characters, setting, style, etc. – that Plato’s oeuvre is so successful in creating various attachments in present-day readers.

    To put this hypothesis to the test, I isolated three uses of dialogue; three aesthetic responses involved in reading Plato’s dialogues: identification, enchantment, and shock. Establishing a connection between the aesthetic value of the dialogues and their use, I argued, is the first step towards a more comprehensive account of why we still read Plato today. The Felskian perspective I adopted in this paper allows us to see that Plato’s present-day appeal does not lie in his historical importance or the contemporary relevance of his arguments. Rather, it lies in the fact that we can identify with Plato’s characters; that we can become enchanted by the settings of Plato’s dialogues; and that we can be shocked by the customs and values we encounter there. We still read Plato today because of the affective and absorptive experience he provides us.

    In fact, a Felskian account is preferable, because it can incorporate the historical resonance account and the argumentative touchstone account, whilst having an additional advantage. First, it can incorporate and explain Plato’s transgression of temporal boundaries, by means of its methodological embracement of Actor-Network Theory, and its attribution of agency to texts in particular. That Plato has been markedly influential in the history of philosophy,  is – from Felski’s point of view – because his dialogues have a distinctive capacity to attach themselves to other actors, such as readers and writers, copyists and publishers, translators and parodists. Second, a Felskian reply is able to incorporate and explain the argumentative touchstone account, by acknowledging that theoretical interpretation is one of our textual engagements with Plato, alongside many others. However, it also draws our attention to the affective ties underlying such analyses: that we continue to refer to Plato’s arguments, we might say, has much to do with the literary worlds in which they appear.

    Besides its explanatory potential, a Felskian account also has an additional advantage, in that it enables us to answer the question with which we started this paper. Why do we love Plato? The historical resonance- and argumentative touchstone account are hard-pressed to provide an answer to such a question, consequently rendering the question itself misplaced. From a Felskian perspective, however, this question is only logical, while its answer is easy: we do not love Plato because of his influence or his arguments, but because of his vivid and distinctive characters with which we can identify. We love Plato, because his dialogues offer us an escape from our everyday reality and an acquaintance with a long-gone past. We love Plato, because after almost 2,400 years, his works have lost none of their capacity to enchant, amuse, disturb, or shock us. We love Plato, because his use of stylistic devices still hooks us.

    In short, Plato’s dialogues deserve to be studied and taught, not because of their canonical status, but because they make us think and feel differently; because they cause perceptual changes and elicit our emotions; because they create affective ties and incite attachments. Their value lies not just their content or form, I contend, but also in their use – which is vital but understudied. My hope is that transposing Felski’s project within philosophy enables us to fill this lacuna.

    Bibliography

    Dimock, Wai Chee. 1997. “A Theory of Resonance.” PMLA 112, no. 5: 1060–1071.

    Felski, Rita. 2008. Uses of Literature. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

    Felski, Rita. 2011. “Context Stinks!” New Literary History 42, no. 4: 573–591.

    Felski, Rita. 2015. The Limits of Critique. Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press.

    Felski, Rita. 2020. Hooked: Art and Attachment. Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press.

    Hinman, Lawrence M. 1980. “Philosophy and Style.” The Monist 63, no. 4: 512–529.

    Hösle, Vittorio. 2012. The Philosophical Dialogue: A Poetics and a Hermeneutics. Translated by Steven Rendall. Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press.

    Kraut, Richard. 2022. ‘‘Plato.’’ In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University,

    1997–. Article published March 20, 2004; last modified February 12, 2022. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/plato/.

    Meinwald, Constance C. 2023. ‘‘Plato.’’ In Encyclopedia Britannica, Britannica Group. Last updated November 9, 2023. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Plato.

    Nawar, Tamer. 2023. ‘‘Democracy and Knowledge in Ancient Greece.’’ In The Routledge

    Handbook of Political Epistemology, 13–23. Edited by Michael Hannon and Jeroen de Ridder. Abingdon/New York: Routledge.

    Whitehead, Alfred North. 1978. Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology. New York, NY: The Free Press.

    [1] Felski (2011) levels this critique against ‘‘Birmingham-style cultural studies and its model of articulation theory’’ (581), but I believe it can be applied to the historical resonance account as well.

    [2] The ‘patchwork thesis’ is the idea in Kant-scholarship that Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason can be seen as a ‘patchwork’ of his earlier, pre-critical writings.

    [3] See for this point, which is elaborated in the next paragraph, also Chapter 3: ‘‘On the Relationship between Form and Content in the Philosophical Dialogue,’’ especially 51ff.

    [4] Felski raises these questions in the context of her polemic against engagements with literature that focus on ‘‘agon (conflict and domination) at the expense of eros (love and connection),’’ such as, for example, postcolonial-feminist critics. Here, I oppose them to the supposed detachment of interpretation.

    [5] ‘‘Use’’ should be understood here in a broad sense, as having to do with the value of, in this case, philosophical dialogues for individual readers (which is my focus here) or society as a whole. Cf. Felski (2011), 7-8.

  • Op zoek naar de verhalen van de FFTR

    Een interview met drs. Ignace de Haes over het boek Denkers en Duiders: Een eeuw Nijmeegse filosofie, theologie en religiewetenschappen in honderd verhalen

    “Heb je al gehoord …”, “Wat er gister toch is gebeurd …”, “Wat ik nu toch weer heb meegemaakt …”: Deze en soortgelijke zinnen hoor je de hele dag door. Mensen vertellen elkaar continu verhalen. Verhalen over de man in de bus die zijn nagels zat te knippen, over de docent die op blote voeten college stond te geven, over de medestudent die een diepe zucht slaakte bij het horen van de naam ‘Plato’. Iedere gebeurtenis, iedere ervaring, alles wat we meemaken, het zijn allemaal verhalen. We vertellen, we luisteren en we vertellen verder. Alles wat we doen, wat we denken, wat we voelen, de keuzes die we maken, het draagt allemaal bij aan het verhaal dat we over onszelf, over onze omgeving vertellen, want wat is het leven als het geen verhaal is? Iedereen werkt dag in dag uit aan diens eigen narratief. Die verhalen komen bij elkaar, tijdens ontmoetingen tussen mensen. Op één dag lopen er al honderden, duizenden mensen op campus rond, die allemaal hun eigen narratief met zich meedragen. Moet je nagaan hoeveel verhalen zich door de jaren heen hebben verzameld, hoeveel er op je liggen te wachten als je de moeite neemt om te zoeken, te luisteren, hoeveel er voor altijd verborgen zullen blijven om nooit meer gevonden te worden. Al 100 jaar bruisen de gebouwen van de Radboud Universiteit van de verhalen. Je zult ze misschien niet iedere dag bewust zien, maar ze zijn er wel degelijk.

    Een faculteit vol verhalen

    Hoe bijzonder is het dan om bewust op zoek te gaan naar deze verhalen, om te vragen, om nieuwsgierig te zijn, om interesse te tonen, om te luisteren. Dit is wat drs. Ignace de Haes, twee jaar geleden, besloot te doen. Ter ere van het 100 jarig bestaan van de Radboud Universiteit, besloot hij om een zoektocht te starten naar de verhalen van de FFTR, want, zoals hij zelf zegt:  ‘‘We zijn een faculteit van grote verhalen, zowel bij de theologie als bij de filosofie. Met dit project wilde ik op zoek gaan naar de kleine verhalen, dat zijn verhalen die in principe subjectief zijn. Bij dat soort verhalen ga je uit van iemands ervaringen en herinneringen.’’ Ignace is twee jaar lang op zoek geweest naar die kleine verhalen. Steeds meer mensen sloten zich bij de zoektocht aan. Een jaar geleden, kwam ook ik het team versterken: ik ben in de archieven gedoken, ik ben met mensen gaan praten, ik ben gaan zoeken, gaan luisteren, om deze verhalen te verzamelen. Nu, een jaar later, hebben we met zijn allen maar liefst 100 verhalen bij elkaar gesprokkeld en gebundeld in het boek Denkers en Duiders: Een eeuw Nijmeegse filosofie, theologie en religiewetenschappen in honderd verhalen. Na het meewerken aan de zoektocht naar de verhalen van het verleden van de faculteit, ben ik benieuwd naar nog één laatste verhaal, het verhaal dat achter dit boek schuilgaat. Ik heb aan Ignace gevraagd of hij mij dat verhaal wilt vertellen.

    In het begin sch…

    Ignace is twee jaar geleden begonnen met het verzamelen van de kleine verhalen van de FFTR. Hij wilde zowel verhalen over de theologie als de filosofie vertellen, omdat dat de twee grote, oude pilaren zijn, waar de faculteit op steunt. Zijn idee was om 100 verhalen te gaan schrijven: één verhaal over ieder jaar dat zowel de universiteit als de studies filosofie en theologie bestaan. Poëtisch genoeg was het eerste verhaal dat hij schreef, het verhaal over het begin, over de schepping van hemel en aarde, of ten minste het ontstaan daarvan. Het is namelijk nog maar de vraag of hemel en aarde überhaupt geschapen zijn. Dit ontdekte Ellen van Wolde tijdens haar onderzoek naar de Hebreeuwse grondteksten van de Bijbel.  Ze kwam erachter dat het Hebreeuwse woord bara, in de Bijbel vertaald is als scheppen, terwijl het eerder scheiden betekent. Op het eerste gezicht lijkt dit geen indrukwekkende bevinding, het is slechts één woordje, hoe kan de vertaling van één simpel woordje nou een impact hebben op een verhaal, laat staan op een boek zo dik als de Bijbel? Toch wekte deze bevinding een stortvloed aan reacties op, allerlei deskundigen en gelovigen reageerden op en maakten zich druk om deze bevinding. Waarom? Daarvoor moeten we terug naar het begin, naar de eerste zin van de Bijbel, want ‘‘In het begin schiep God hemel en aarde’’ (Genesis 1:1) wordt dan: ‘‘In het begin scheidde God hemel en aarde.’’ Zo kan één woordje, één klein woordje, het hele verhaal van de wereld, het hele wereldbeeld van gelovigen op losse schroeven zetten. Wat betekent het als God niet de wereld uit het niets schiep, maar de wereld al bestond voordat God deze scheidde? Bestond er dan al iets voordat God bestond? En wat betekent dat voor het geloof? Wat betekent dat voor het scheppingsverhaal? Is dit een bedreigende vondst, of juist een verrijkende? Ellen van Wolde zette mensen aan het denken, aan het reflecteren met haar vertaling van één simpel, klein woordje. Bij het opnieuw vertellen van dit verhaal, grinnikt Ignace tevreden: ‘‘Ik vind het zo geweldig. Die eerste zin van de Bijbel bestaat al 2000 jaar en dan komt er een wetenschapper die zegt: ‘Ja, die eerste zin, die klopt niet, die is verkeerd vertaald.’ Eén woord anders, maakt een compleet ander wereldbeeld, wat het wereldbeeld van het Christendom in elkaar laat storten. Nou, dat vind ik prachtig.’’

    Diversiteit

    Ignace heeft niet alle 100 verhalen alleen hoeven schrijven. Dat zou onmogelijk in twee jaar tijd zijn gelukt. Sowieso paste dat ook niet bij de visie die hij voor het project had. Zoals ik al eerder heb gezegd, wilde hij namelijk op zoek naar de kleine verhalen van de faculteit, de subjectieve verhalen, de anekdotes, verhalen die in een hoekje liggen te wachten om ontdekt te worden, verhalen die al heel lang in het geheugen van verschillende mensen opgeslagen liggen, maar gewoon nooit of nauwelijks verteld zijn geweest. Ignace beschrijft zijn visie als volgt: ‘‘We hebben al genoeg wetenschappelijke boeken, dus het mogen verhalen zijn van alumni, van medewerkers, van anderen die iets observeren. Daarnaast mag het over alles gaan.’’ Hij wilde zoveel mogelijk mensen bij het project betrekken. Als je naar de laatste pagina’s van het boek bladert, kun je aan de auteurslijst, die maar liefst twee hele pagina’s beslaat met in totaal 48 namen, zien dat dit zeker gelukt is.

    Op deze auteurslijst staan namen van mensen die Ignace zelf heeft benaderd en gevraagd om een verhaal te schrijven, zoals prof. dr. Peter Nissen en prof. dr. Christoph Lüthy, die samen met Ignace de redactie van het project vormden. Veel mensen hebben zich ook via mond-tot-mond reclame als een soort sneeuwbaleffect bij het project aangesloten, zo heeft dr. Willem van der Kuijlen voor het verhaal van 1988 getiteld: ‘‘Filosofische stratenmakers’’, de vier filosofen: Pieter van Diesen, Theo Theunissen, Zafer Aydogdu en Henk Hoogervorst gevraagd om een verhaal voor het project te schrijven. Dankzij de veelzijdigheid van de redactie zelf en van alle mensen die hebben meegewerkt is er een boek ontstaan met een grote diversiteit aan schrijvers, stijlen en verhalen. Sommige verhalen zijn meer historisch, andere juist anekdotisch. Er zijn interviews, prozateksten, beschrijvende verhalen, en stukjes uit archieven in het boek te vinden. Sommige verhalen zijn grappig, andere zijn emotioneel, sommige zijn kritisch, andere zijn lovend, sommige gaan over gebeurtenissen in de geschiedenis die in de archieven verstopt liggen, andere gaan over wat recentere en meer bekende ervaringen. Al met al is het volgens Ignace ‘‘een kleurrijk, divers pallet van verhalen van vroeger tot nu’’ geworden.

    Favoriete verhaal van Ignace

    Uit dit pallet wilt Ignace eigenlijk geen favoriet kiezen, want het zijn nu eenmaal 100 prachtige verhalen geworden, die allemaal hun eigen charmes hebben en allemaal op hun eigen manier iets toevoegen aan het geheel. Toch is er één verhaal dat voor hem een speciaal plekje heeft. Dit is het verhaal van 2021 over Justine Borkes, een mevrouw die een vaste bezoekster was van de koffiehoek op de 15e verdieping. Iedereen kende haar, maar niemand scheen precies te weten wat ze daar nu eigenlijk deed. Ignace was nieuwsgierig naar haar verhaal en heeft haar gecontacteerd om te vragen of hij haar mocht interviewen. Dat mocht en het verborgen verhaal van de onbekende dame in de koffiehoek werd aan het licht gebracht. Tijdens het gesprek, kwam Ignace erachter dat Justine dichteres was en filosofie had gestudeerd. Ze wilde heel graag promoveren, maar dat is haar uiteindelijk niet gelukt. Toch bleef ze naar de koffiehoek op de 15e verdieping komen, want, zoals ze zelf in het interview zegt: ‘‘Filosofie is voor mij meer dan alleen de teksten van filosofen. Filosofie heeft voor mij alles te maken met ruimte en thuiskomen. Dat is de reden dat ik de ruimte opzoek waar filosofie bedreven wordt. Door die ruimte laat ik me inspireren, ook in mijn gedichten. […]De koffiehoek op de vijftiende verdieping was mijn thuis, mijn huiskamer, omdat juist die ruimte voor mij gelijk staat met filosofie en gastvrijheid’’ (De Haes, Lüthy & Nissen 2023, 13).

    Wat begon als een gesprek uit Ignace zijn interesse in en nieuwsgierigheid naar het verhaal van Justine, werd een afscheidsinterview. Toen Ignace haar interviewde, lag Justine al in het ziekenhuis. Nog geen twee weken later, is Justine overleden. Deze ervaring heeft veel indruk gemaakt op Ignace: ‘‘Dit heeft mij geleerd dat er achter iedereen een verhaal zit, alleen je moet er wel nieuwsgierig naar zijn, dan zul je zien dat iedereen bewonderingswaardige verhalen te vertellen heeft.’’

    De verhalen gaan verder

    Iedereen heeft een verhaal en die verhalen stoppen niet simpelweg met bestaan als je ze hebt opgeschreven en gebundeld in een boek, ze worden doorverteld, ze gaan verder, er komt altijd een vervolg. Wanneer mensen overlijden, overleven hun verhalen. Wie zouden we nog zijn en wat zouden we nog doen op de Faculteit der Filosofie, Theologie en Religiewetenschappen als we niet meer zouden putten uit de verhalen van het verleden? Als we niet meer vol verwondering en nieuwsgierigheid om ons heen zouden kijken? Als we het gedachtegoed en de levensverhalen van mensen, filosofen, theologen en schrijvers met hen zouden begraven om hun verhalen door ruimte en tijd te laten afbreken, vergaan? Zou er dan nog iets als literatuur bestaan? Nog iets als Theologie? Religie? Filosofie? Waarop zouden we bouwen als we geen verhalen meer hadden? Wat zou dan ons fundament nog zijn? Ons uitgangspunt? Ons bestaansrecht? We werken iedere dag met verhalen, of ze nu literair en poëtisch zijn of wetenschappelijk en feitelijk, of de filosofie in het wit tussen de woorden te vinden is, of op een zilveren dienblaadje aan ons wordt geserveerd. We zijn altijd op zoek naar de verhalen van het verleden en naar hoe we daarop kunnen voortborduren in het hier en nu, hoe de verhalen verder gaan, nooit af zijn.

    Denkers en Duiders: een eeuw Nijmeegse filosofie, theologie en religiewetenschappen in honderd verhalen

    Dit boek is dan ook een momentopname, een barometer, een peiling. 100 bewonderingswaardige gebeurtenissen zijn door de medewerkers en medewerksters van dit project verzameld en opschreven. Door dit boek zijn mijn ogen geopend en ben ik ze gaan zien. Tijdens het zoeken en schrijven, heb ik de universiteit en de FTR-Faculteit zelf op een hele andere manier leren kennen. Natuurlijk vraagt iedere student zich wel eens af, als ze weer eens in de overvolle bus 10 hutje mutje op elkaar gepropt zitten, waarom de campus niet gewoon in het centrum is, dat is toch veel makkelijker? Ook heb ik het wel eens vreemd gevonden dat we hier überhaupt de FTR-Faculteit kennen en niet, zoals bij veel andere universiteiten, een Faculteit der Letteren en Wijsbegeerte. Pas als je de geschiedenis induikt ga je hiervoor de antwoorden vinden, vallen dingen op hun plek en ga je op een andere manier om je heen kijken, ga je andere dingen zien. Zoals Ignace het omschrijft: ‘‘Je leert iets over de geschiedenis aan de hand van subjectieve verhalen en als je al die verhalen doorleest krijg je een rode draad van de geschiedenis te pakken. Dit boek geeft een mooi beeld van een eeuw Nijmeegse filosofie, theologie en religiewetenschappen in honderd verhalen. Nu ben ik natuurlijk heel benieuwd hoe de aankomende 100 jaar gaan verlopen.’’ De Radboud blijft bruisen. En wie weet, misschien komt er over 100 jaar weer een boek vol met de verhalen, die vandaag beginnen en die we samen mogen gaan beleven, samen mogen gaan schrijven, iedere dag weer.

    Weggeefactie

    Dit prachtige boek vol verhalen, die inzicht geven in 100 jaar geschiedenis filosofie, theologie en religiewetenschappen aan de Radboud universiteit, is niet alleen verkrijgbaar in de boekhandel, er worden binnenkort ook 3 exemplaren verloot! Op de Splijtstof Instagram zal een post geplaatst worden, waarop je kunt reageren, om kans te maken op een exemplaar. Uit de reacties zullen drie gelukkige winnaars worden geloot. Houd je ogen en oren dus goed open. Wie weet, staat Denkers en Duiders binnenkort bij jou op de boekenplank te schitteren en kun jij je verdiepen in de verhalen van het verleden.

    Bibliografie

    Haes, Ignace, de, Christoph Lüthy, Peter Nissen. 2023. Denkers en Duiders: Een eeuw Nijmeegse filosofie, theologie en religiewetenschappen in honderd verhalen. Nijmegen: Vantilt.

  • Off the Record with Marilyn Kallasse

    Marilyn Kallasse is a woman on a mission. She’s a 21-year-old international student from Estonia. Not content with simply studying PPS, she is the Chair of F.C. Sophia, and can often be found working at the Coffee Corner at the UB.

    Rather than starting by asking you for a fun fact about yourself, can you tell me a fun lie about yourself?

    ‘‘I can’t lie. I physically can’t lie. I have never successfully lied in my life. I don’t know. There are no lies… there is only truth. That is not a good answer, but YOLO. I can tell you a fun fact about myself, though!’’

    Oh! Go for it.

    ‘‘I am very intrigued by countries ending with -stan. Two days ago, I watched an hour-long video about Turkmenistan. They have all the Guinness world records for having the most marble buildings in their capital. Did you know that?’’

    I did not know that!

    ‘‘Now you know!’’

    What’s your favourite -stan country?

    ‘‘I am intrigued by Kazakhstan… the capital looks like a mixture of Dubai and Las Vegas together, and I am very intrigued by this. I watched a documentary about it, and the nature is very beautiful, so I am going to go there one day.’’

    What is it like to do a full-time study, a part-time job and a board year all at the same time?

    ‘‘…It’s sometimes a very silent, loud scream… Sometimes it’s hard, but I’m a big fan of time management. To be honest, right now there are only two things in my mind, board and work. I rest is kind of like, in the background. It’s stowed in my filing cabinet. It is tiring, but I’m trying my best and right now I’m doing fine with it. I feel like an actual businesswoman, ‘cos I need to have my phone ringer on all the time. It’s a thing.’’

    Speaking of being a successful businesswoman, what gives you a feeling of achievement?

    ‘‘If we talk about doing a board year, I think the most fulfilling feeling is when someone notices that I did this thing, or that thing, and says: ‘this was very nice’. I’m a big fan of words of affirmation. I’ve been getting a lot of ‘good job’s’ and pats on the back, and I’ve been going ‘whooo!’. It’s so goofy.’’

    Do you have some wisdom for us?

    ‘‘I don’t wanna sound too cheesy, but I think people should be more kind to themselves. If there are days where you feel like you can’t do anything, like if you went to the library for 9 hours and all you did was Buzzfeed quizzes, that’s fine. I try to practise with myself saying that it’s okay, life goes on, and I shouldn’t hold it against myself. I think some of my friends struggle with this as well. It’s okay to realise at 12pm on a Monday that you’re done and you can go home. We ball. And some of us are bald…’’

    [to me, as an aside] ‘‘You know how in courtrooms they have those keyboards to write everything down in shorthand? You would be so slay at that, typing all this down. It would be so slay.’’

    If 2016 was the year of realising things, what was 2023 the year of?

    ‘‘I mean, I feel like people started realising things in 2016 and STILL haven’t fully realised everything. 2023 is – okay, another very cheesy answer – but it’s about being kind to yourself and others, and it’s just… I don’t know, life is hard and there is inflation, like, beer is getting more expensive, it’s all a lot. But I feel like at the end of the day, what we have is other people and ourselves and we should just be kind.’’  

    What is your favourite word in every language you speak, and what does each word mean?

    ‘‘So in Estonian, my native language, my mother tongue, the word is ‘tohuvabohu’. It means chaos. It’s a goofy word because, like, you can literally use it for anything. It’s the Estonian equivalent of ‘goofy chaos’. It rolls very nicely off the tongue. It’s not a common word in the Estonian language anymore, like, you would hear a grandmother say it. I think that’s very beautiful.

    In Dutch it’s definitely the word ‘smoorverliefd’, because it means being ‘head over heels in love’ with someone, and I think it’s so nice in Dutch that it’s only one word. In other languages you have to use a lot of words to get the point across. But the Dutch came up with just one word for it, and I think that’s really beautiful. Also, shoutout to Doe Maar for writing a great song.

    I think my favourite word in English… is an adjective, though. Does an adjective count as a word?’’

    If I answer the question, am I allowed to keep this part in the interview?

    ‘‘Yeah… I guess… An adjective is a word, right?’’

    Yes.

    ‘‘Okay… It’s probably goofy! Because with goofy, you can give away so many things. ‘That’s goofy’, as in, ‘I think that’s weird’, ‘that’s goofy’, as in, ‘I think that’s funny’… if I don’t know what to say, I can say ‘goofy’. It’s a good word.’’

    Is it kind of like when Paris Hilton says, when you don’t know what to say, you can say ‘That’s Hot?’

    ‘‘Yeah, literally.

    …Oh, and I don’t have a favourite word in German.[1]’’

    Which musical album changed your life?

    ‘‘I think the album that has had a genuine physical effect on me was the first time I listened to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon on the trolley to work – we have trolleys[2] in Estonia, goofy – and that’s when… I’ve always, you know, been surrounded by music, but that was the moment when I really realised what music can do to people. And it’s a great album!’’

    What are you reading right now?

    ‘‘I haven’t started a new book, but I love Dolly Alderton, and I just finished a book by her where people write prompts to her and she responds to them. Sometimes women in their 20s can feel like they need to have a boyfriend, bla bla bla, and what she writes is that the biggest loves in her life have been her friends. I think that’s really important.

    Next, I’m going to read Everything You Ever Wanted by Luiza Sauma. It’s about a woman who moves to a different planet to start a new life. But I haven’t started, I’ve only read one page.’’

    Speaking of starting a new life, what are your hopes for the future? Where will you be, and what will you be doing?

    ‘‘I see myself staying in Nijmegen and doing my Master’s here as well, maybe another board year. Then, I would like to work, for example, as an ambassador one day. I would like to be the Estonian ambassador in the Netherlands… but maybe that’s too ambitious.’’

    Do you have any final messages for the Universe, before I end the interview?

    ‘‘Please come to F.C. Sophia’s Lustrum activities, it’s going to be really fun!’’

    Anything else?

    ‘‘That’s it!’’

    [1] I have received word that ‘tohuvabohu’ is also used in German. It is originally a Biblical Hebrew word meaning ‘primordial chaos’, i.e. the formless chaos/void before creation.

    [2] A trolleybus is an electric bus that gets power from overhead wires.

  • In Conversation with Professor Marjolein Oele

    Marjolein Oele is Professor of Philosophy of the Humanities. The new Chair position she occupies is aimed at bridge building between the Faculty of PTR (Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies) and the Faculty of Arts. Oele’s research intertwines: Ancient Philosophy, Continental Philosophy, and Environmental Philosophy. She is the author of “E-Co-Affectivity: Exploring Pathos at Life’s Material Interfaces” (SUNY, 2020) and co-editor of “Ontologies of Nature: Continental Perspectives and Environmental Reorientations” (Springer, 2017). Her most recent book project thematizes a sense of loss in the relationship to our world, and is entitled “Elemental Loss: Shifting Constellations of Water, Fire, Air and Earth.” Her articles have been published in a wide range of journals, including Ancient Philosophy, Configurations, Environmental Philosophy, Epochê, Radical Philosophy Review, and Research in Phenomenology. She is also teaching the course “Critique of Green Ideology” in the PPS “Ecology and Sustainability” module. I, Laura Schranz, had the pleasure to interview her for Splijtstof .

    Laura: Thank you, Prof. Oele! You have a very interesting and niche field of research, at least I for my part have not heard of this way of doing philosophy before meeting you. Could you maybe give me an introduction to it?

    Prof. Oele: I have a few research fields that I’m interested in, the broader one being this question of affect and affectivity, how we’re being moved by other people, by the world as such, by other living beings, by our own bodies, our own thoughts, our own emotions. This question of how we come to become ourselves, or how the world comes to be itself in relationship to all those things. I’ve tried to unravel this bigger question with regard to a number of other big themes. One of them is climate change and the ecological crisis, because I think it is the predominant ethical question of our time. So, I have found it very important as a philosopher to use some of the philosophical concepts that I’ve been trained in, for instance through Aristotle or through Heidegger, and make them applicable towards this question. I also philosophize about pregnancy and embodiment as a part of that constellation, insofar as how we come to be.

    Laura: In the course you teach to me and other fellow PPS students, you indeed mentioned that you are very interested in incorporating pregnancy into your philosophy. In terms of how we come to be, that seems a very literal form of becoming then, no?

    Prof. Oele: Indeed, I have written about the question of embodiment in pregnancy. I’ve explored that by using, for instance, Plato’s Republic; thinking through how we become to be who we are. A big part of my research on pregnancy has been devoted to the placenta, an organ of the in-between which I think of as installing a pregnant city. What happens if we think about pregnancy in terms of the messy material of being, the emergence of community out of a space of the in-between rather than just being informed by individual beings? Beyond the obvious exchange of nutrients and other factors taking place in and through the placenta, when I looked at the placenta, there’s current research investigating the exchange of cells that are from siblings or even (miscarried) previous children. Maternal cells are also being transferred across the placenta. This “microchimerism” as it is called offers access to a community that is much bigger than that contemporaneous community of cells that’s there in the placenta.

    The mutual exchange happening is also cross intersected with lots of environmental factors that are seeping through, for instance toxins. Further, the traces of what happens in that community are being transported into the future. For instance, foetal cells will remain even if the pregnancy is interrupted. Microchimerism carries forward into the future in many unpredictable ways, insofar as bodies will retain those communities within them.

    Laura: You mentioned that you are interested in this messy material of being. The image of the pregnant city in the placenta very well fits that, do you like to think about the environment in such a way?

    Prof. Oele: I do! I also work with soil, which is also very messy. Oftentimes, we romanticise it and talk about Earth and its power, but I like to dig into the dirty, messy stuff of life. There is this new group of philosophers called the “new materialists” that draw attention to this notion of matter. I have found real inspiration in that, especially in combination with my background in medical school.  There is this tendency in modern culture to sterilise life, to use sterile concepts, and I think it’s a uniquely challenging thought to dig into the messiness of life, for instance into soil and into organs such as the placenta. So yes, I like to think about these messy interfaces, as I call them, or “e-co-affective interfaces”, as my book has it. And to make them philosophically appealing and interesting and complex.

    Laura: That is such an intriguing way of looking at it! You have also mentioned this term of the “pregnant city”. And you write about loss, too, both in the contexts of pregnancy and environmental loss. How does this go together with the community you are describing?

    Prof. Oele: Oftentimes we think about pregnancy as a one-way street towards birth, which is very much a misconception. 70% of conceptions, so it’s estimated, do not continue. This is a discourse that’s often forgotten, due to the teleology that exists around pregnancy. To philosophically thematize pregnancy and loss has recently been on the upswing, with a few publications coming out on miscarriage and stillbirth from a philosophical perspective. I find it important to write about this, as it is key to undo the silencing around these topics and use philosophy as a way to transform discourses, and, possibly, aid those suffering from such losses.

    Another topic that I feel very dear about is to think about questions of loss that don’t just have to do with the loss of a particular being, but with the loss of a certain kind of constellation. There is an intersection here. Both with environmental loss and with pregnancy loss (which I have named the loss of the pregnant city), you lose a certain kind of constellation, a world, and a certain kind of future. I am intrigued by what it means to be confronted with a world that shrinks or transforms, that is never ever going to be the same as what we had expected or hoped for earlier on. Moreover, what does it mean to mourn when you don’t exactly know what it is that you are mourning, since there is no one particular “thing” that you lose?

    These are losses that speak to a transformed world, and, at least in my experience, pregnancy loss involves such a transformation of world. I see a connection there to a world of climate change. We may mourn the loss of certain species, but we may be more affected by this larger question of a transformed world where we find less and less hope for places of refuge, of trust, of rebirth, where the world can reconstitute itself.

    Laura: That really resonates with me, these different facets of loss that climate change imposes on us. It reminds me of texts I have read on the way environmental grief is experienced differently, depending on your cultural relationship to nature and the world. What you say speaks of a deep relationality between us, each other and the world in all its forms.

    Prof. Oele: Right, I am after all a philosopher of affect. As Butler would say it, we are always originally composed of relationality, yes. And so, when we experience loss, we actually lose  ourselves, since we’re always relational. This notion of grief gets us into this sense of relationality that underlies us very deeply in a fundamental way, and can thereby make us a bit more aware of how we are connected to each other. If we would see ourselves as much more relational, also in terms of climate change, experiences of loss that we currently may have could possibly afford us a way forward. We become much more aware of the fact that the world as we had imagined it to be isn’t just our own mirror, but that we have always been part of this environmental ecological system. Much of the meaning of who we experience ourselves to be is dependent upon that larger network.

    I lived in the United States, California specifically, for a long time. We know how many of the indigenous populations have been uprooted or unsettled, long before climate change, due to the colonial settlers. These indigenous populations have already experienced loss for a long time. If we are now confronted by climate change and mention this loss as sudden, those indigenous populations would say “what event are you talking about now?” When I talked earlier about grief, how it may connect us and make us more sensitive towards the world, in some sense maybe our own climate grief now can also make us more sensitive towards the grief that others around the globe have felt regarding lifestyles and colonialism that we have imposed upon them. Therefore, it may not just make us more empathetic or sympathetic, but make us form alliances.

    And of course, I don’t want to say that suffering is a precondition for having a different kind of relationship to the world. But I do think that given the current crisis within which we are, suffering could instil transformation. Not just one-on-one, but also through creating different kinds of affective-sensitive dispositions and transforming political economic policies. In this regard, affective dispositional changes can transform societies.

    Laura: I think those are some beautiful words to end with. Thank you very much for the conversation!

  • Into the Black Hole with Jonathan Zackor

    The Valkhof Museum’s exhibition ‘Into the Black Hole’ opened in October of 2023, to much fanfare. Students from Radboud University (such as our very own Laura Schranz!) participated as ‘public-in-residence’ to co-design the exhibition alongside the Valkhof museum. I decided to interview Jonathan Zackor, a Master’s student in Tourism and Culture at Radboud, who was part of the core group of students working on the exhibition. I had a strategic advantage in scheduling an interview with him, owing to the fact that we have been boyfriends for almost a year and a half.

    I decide to spring a surprise interview on Jonathan during his shift at the coffee corner in the main University Library. He is wearing his black work polo shirt and a pair of comfortable-looking jeans, but his individuality is still obvious even through his uniform: his split-dyed hair (currently half-brown, half-orange), the tattoos on his arm and his nose piercings make him easy to spot. He is softly spoken, switching between English and Dutch to take people’s coffee orders, and apologetically defaulting back to English with a smile if someone tries to order using unfamiliar Dutch slang. In a quiet moment, I ask my first question:

    For the uninitiated, who are you, and what was your role in the Valkhof Museum exhibition ‘Into the Black Hole’?

    “I’m Jonathan Zackor, I’m an international student from Germany who is doing his Master’s in Tourism and Culture. While I was working at the Valkhof Museum, I was still doing my Bachelor’s degree in Arts and Culture Studies, so my Master’s orientation coincided with the work I was doing at Valkhof. I was hired by the Valkhof Museum, as a Radboud student, particularly as a student who could participate in giving a unique perspective on the collaboration between art and science.”

    He leans over to look at what I have written down so far, then asks, “Could you add that I was selected to be a member of the core group, not the senate?”

    On the topic of unique perspectives, I ask him if he noticed a difference in approach or mindset between him and students from different faculties. He begins to answer, but is interrupted by an influx of customers to the coffee corner. He diligently switches to taking people’s orders, and once the rush dies down, he returns.

    “A difference? Well, yes… I think a difference was already reflected in my motivation when I applied for this position. They were asking what our opinion about the black hole was, what initial thoughts we had about it. I told them that I wanted to become an academic researcher, that I’ve done some independent research on it already, and that I’ve done some independent research on Affect studies – with an A!”

    At this point, something shifts: Jonathan is no longer just chatting during his work shift, cleaning Billie cups and keeping an eye out for customers – he embodies an academic, a professor giving a lecture on cultural studies (one I am struggling to capture the true depth of in my hastily-typed notes).

    “In my opinion, the phenomenon of the black hole is extremely challenging to grasp, so I attached some thoughts to it that were inspired by my previous research, such as imagining the black hole as a void with all emotions absent, with all humanness absent. So I was considering the black hole from a Culture-studies’ perspective. I was not the only person working on the exhibition from the Faculty of Arts, obviously, but I was very willing to stand in for the initial idea that I had.”

    “I think the perspective I have is also important for people who don’t know anything about black holes. Like, I didn’t know anything about the scientific side, I think most people probably don’t. In antiquity, people came up with Greek gods to try to understand the phenomena around themselves that were beyond understanding, and I think the black hole represents something similar.”

    “In my studies, we are taught to be extremely critical. Our study is very theoretical, so I thought it was very different…”

    Jonathan dashes away for a moment to retrieve some returned Billie cups from customers, puts them in the sink, then makes his way back over to me.

    “…I feel like other studies from the Faculty of Arts might have more practical applications, like studying languages, but with Arts and Culture Studies, it may be a stereotype, but you can’t really do anything with it if you don’t have more education, like in a job. You know what I mean?”

    I am a PPS student; naturally, I do.

    So, being an Arts and Culture student, you’re used to having to deal with more abstract ideas that aren’t tangible. You’re used to studying things that can’t necessarily be understood, like a black hole.

    “Oh… you put that much better than I did.” Jonathan half-sighs, half-chuckles.

    What does the exhibition mean to you, firstly as Jonathan the Arts and Culture scholar, and secondly as Jonathan the individual?

    “As a scholar, it means a successful combination of art and science perspectives.”

    He doesn’t elaborate, so I nudge him:

    And what about Jonathan, the individual?

    He smiles, this question is more difficult. After thinking for a moment, he says: “I think one major component of the exhibition was that it was co-designed with students my age, and I think it’s quite an honour to be part of this. I think that the exhibition really thrives off of that as well, because you can hear the contemporary voices. That’s very cool. Like it’s very… in the moment, completely recent. It speaks for our generation.”

    You were talking about Affect earlier; how do you feel when you’re in the exhibition?

    “I feel fascinated by all of the voices that come together. It’s a very overwhelming experience. It leaves me in awe. It makes you wonder why museums don’t work with students more often.”

    What do you think a student from the FFTR could learn from a visit to the exhibition?

    “People can have different conceptions, theories, “scientific theories”…” (Jonathan mimes the quotation marks for “scientific theories” with his hands, half-mockingly, with the air of someone who has several strong opinions on the separation of scientific theory from cultural theory), “…but they can express them in artworks as opposed to in writing. In philosophy, I feel as though writing is the primary way of expressing and learning ideas and theories. In the exhibition, philosophy students could try to retrace the objects, and try to see what theories the objects might incorporate or represent. Obviously the written descriptions of the artworks on the plaques help people to interpret the work…”

    Jonathan hesitates for a moment to gather his thoughts, then confides in me: “If the museum wants to work with students and take them seriously, I think a point of improvement in the future would be for them not to pick and choose from our ideas as it suits them or the status quo.”

    I detect some frustration and, in the spirit of journalism, I resolve to delve deeper, devising a new question while Jonathan finishes his shift.

    Were there things that the senate or the core group had suggested, but weren’t able to implement in the final exhibition?

    “Since I was a member of the core group, we weren’t part of a lot of conversations that the senate had. So I can’t really say anything about that. But we, as a core group, were each given additional specific focuses. One idea we had was contrary to what museums usually do –  we wanted to not print dates on objects we were exhibiting. There are a lot of objects in the vitrines and exhibition space such as the mobile telephone, prints, books from Radboud’s special collection… Using these objects, we wanted to give a comprehensive overview of people from different cultures and different time periods gazing into the stars and making art about it, or wanting to explore what’s waiting for them in the universe, and inventing technologies to do so. This is a cross-cultural thing, and we wanted the visitor to think for themselves about what connects different cultures, in spite of temporal differences. So we were thinking about just completely removing the data and locations of objects from the objects themselves, to not have the dates printed in the object descriptions.”

    “We wanted to do away with museum traditions. The students had visions for how we could change things, and this was brought up in conversation. But I think this, and other ideas, were sometimes too progressive, I guess, in the museum’s eyes. ‘This is not how we do it here’, basically. So those ideas from the students were put to the side, I feel, because they were so out of the way of traditions. But we weren’t really told that this was something we couldn’t give input on.”

    “There was also an issue with language. We were a mix of Dutch and international students, and one of the museum’s missions with the exhibition was to attract more students, which was why they wanted to have our perspective as students. We basically told them: ‘to be inclusive, it would be best to have English as the main language of communication’. But then there is also the tradition of the Valkhof museum to cooperate with German partners and visitors, so in their tradition, the main language of communication is Dutch, followed by German and English (or English and German). We wanted the main language to be English, not only for the big texts, but also for the videos, to make it more attractive to the general student population. But the museum reverted back to what they were used to. It was a very small thing, but I think we could have spent our time better if we had known there were certain things we couldn’t have changed, and we could have dedicated our energy elsewhere, towards things that were possible to change. The boundaries were sometimes a bit blurred.”

    “Basically, how museums usually work, they work with internal and external stakeholders. That makes sense for the museum. We as a core group were basically put in charge of the exhibition concept, or so we were told, which included the upcoming written narrative – the story we wanted to tell to the visitors – and we had a lot of ideas. Each of us in the core group prepared little powerpoints, presented what we thought about black holes, our study backgrounds, and we really connected with each other. From those conversations, we came up with a ‘master narrative’ which included the narrative, but also how to set it up in reality, spatial design, colour coding. One member had a really cool idea for making a vintage space poster, like Star Wars.”

    “And once we were told there were also external stakeholders involved, like a design team, we were excited to work together with them, we spent a lot of time on it, which says a lot, as students. We had multiple meetings. But what we weren’t really told – and I’m just saying that this should have been made clear upfront, to make sure we spent our time properly – was that the design team were the ones in charge because they had a lot of practical experience. We could give them our plans, but they would then tell us what they could do with that. And once they got back to us, I think all of us were shocked because the plan was completely different from what we had in mind with the story we wanted to tell. It was very different. We all really had to get warmed up to the idea. This is not to say that I don’t like the exhibition space as it is now, but we really had to get used to the idea because, at first, we didn’t know how this was going to go. And I think we would have done things differently if there had been transparent communication. I don’t want to sound too critical, but I remember everyone having a moment of silence when the plans were presented in front of us. We were like: ‘Huh? How did they come up with that?’. It was a surprise.”

    Did you learn anything about philosophy, politics or religion while you were working on the exhibition?

    “Well, I did learn a lot, of course, because another member of the core group is literally studying PPS, and she was very inspiring in her talks. I feel like she had a very personal stake in it. I love learning from other people as well. We had a lot of different backgrounds in the core group, and, of course, in the senate, but we didn’t collaborate as much with the senate as with the other core group members. I like to just listen to the very amazing ideas people have around me, obviously there is a reason why the collaboration wanted to have a philosophy student, and I think it was a great mix.”

    “The connection emphasised to me that mechanisms of exclusion and inclusion are all around us. People look up at the same night sky, as part of this imaginary of people thinking about the universe – we are all part of this. But there are still structural things in place that means that this togetherness is obstructed. We set others apart – we obstruct this togetherness. We create Otherness, we perpetuate ideas of cultural supremacy, we try to separate art and science.”

    “In my studies this is very much a point of attention, but to also see these ideas and points of attention emphasised in the work we were doing together, across studies and faculties, was really nice. The exhibition united students of all disciplines in thinking about black holes, and this unitedness is one of the goals of the exhibition itself.”

    “I like that the exhibition shows that people always have been, and always will be, curious about the world around them. I really like that.”

    The location and the exhibition itself describes itself as “accessible to wheelchair users and the disabled” on the website. Do you think this is the case?

    “It is now! For people with physical disabilities. So basically, when the initial design plans were shown to us, and we had a discussion about it, people were like ‘is it accessible for people who use wheelchairs?’, because the initial plan had obstructed the wheelchair ramp with walls. This was rectified, so now it is accessible for people with a wheelchair.”

    “But for some exhibition pieces, specifically ones that use a lot of light and noise, I would have appreciated a warning for people who are sensitive to flashing lights or intense sensory input in general. I don’t think there’s a warning in place right now, and that might limit accessibility for some people. But for the videos, for example, the education videos, there was a lot of conversation about how to deal with the sound. So we finally decided on ‘sound showers’, which I really like. Sound showers come from a source in the ceiling, and you have to stand under it, literally like a shower head but for sound. If you’re not under it, you don’t hear it. So that is good for people who would be overwhelmed by a lot of different sounds in the same room.”

    “And I also remember when we first went into the building on the Keizer Karelplein before the exhibition was set up. A lot of people from our group felt that the physical space of the building was very disorienting, challenging, and we kind of wanted it to not be overwhelming. There are a lot of colours, weirdly-shaped pillars, and we just wanted to create a coherent environment. When we were walking through the building at first, we felt quite uncomfortable. We felt we really had to work with the space and we didn’t want it to be too overwhelming for visitors. I think the exhibition itself is quite a lot, you know, it’s a bit overwhelming in terms of the content and the fact that it makes you feel like a little thing in the universe, it’s quite existential. This is making me think about Camus. May I refer to Camus?”

    You may.

    “I think Camus would have liked this exhibition a lot. You see yourself as this tiny thing, right in front of a black hole, and you think ‘Yes, it exists, you can ask a lot of questions and learn about it, but you can’t escape it, so you just have to face it’… I do like Camus.” Jonathan laughs a little at his own admiration for Camus.

    I recall that the students involved in the exhibition were each asked to devise a question for the visitors to consider as they walked around the exhibition. Your question was along the lines of: “Imagine you are being sucked into a black hole and into a different dimension, and you have to leave something behind. What is it?”. What would you leave behind as you went Into the Black Hole?

    “I asked this question because I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to answer the question. I think that everyone does want to leave something negative behind, maybe they feel that it isn’t a part of their story. So I feel like it’s, again, a very existential question. Usually, I tend to want to think about it, not just give a funny answer. I guess I would want to leave behind the feeling that I don’t deserve good things. Because I do, and everyone else also does. I don’t like it when people question their worth.”

    Speaking of worth, and as a way to round off the interview, what do you think makes the ‘Into the Black Hole’ exhibition worth experiencing?

    “I think the fact that it encourages people to experience curiosity, in the face of their fear. People look at black holes and think: ‘this is scary, but I’m going to study it anyway’. This is very human. I think the exhibition is a testament to human beings doing things both because of, and in spite of, existential fear or dread. Students, artists, scientists, everyone.”

  • Towards a Decolonial Ecology

    Indigenous Conceptualizations of, and Cosmological Relationships to, the Natural World

    Like Creation stories everywhere, cosmologies are a source of identity and orientation to the world. We are inevitably shaped by them no matter how distant they may be from our consciousness. One story leads to the generous embrace of the living world, the other to banishment. One woman is our ancestral gardener, a cocreator of the good green world that would be the home of her descendants. The other was an exile, just passing through an alien world on a rough road to her real home in heaven. And then they met – the offspring of Skywoman and the children of Eve – and the land around us bears the scars of that meeting. (Kimmerer 2020, 7)

    In the first chapter of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants,Wall Kimmerer (2020), an Anishinabekwe[1] plant scientist from Eastern Canada, tells the Creation story that is shared by the Original Peoples throughout the Great Lakes in present day North America. In the story a woman falls from the skies and is caught by geese. Animals then provide her with mud, and a turtle lends his back for land to be cultivated on. The ‘Skywoman’ gifts a handful of fruits, plants, and seeds for the mud to grow into land. This is how Turtle Island is born. As the quote above shows, the story of Skywoman expresses a very different cosmology than the Christian Creation story.

    Creation stories express cosmologies in which history, identity, language, land base, and beliefs all connect, secure, and regulate one’s orientation to the natural world (Salmón 2000, 1327-1332). Humans’ orientation to the natural world is of particular importance when looking at the ecological crisis. The ecological crisis has not been caused by all humans, but by certain exploitative and oppressive systems in which humans relate to the natural world in a certain way. As an alternative to this exploitative and oppressive relation, this paper seeks to connect the wider decolonial project to ecological and environmentalist discourses by looking at different conceptualizations of, and cosmological relationships to the natural world as reflected in Indigenous languages.

    First, I will discuss the conceptualization of the natural world that is expressed in the Christian cosmological orientation to the world, that has resulted in the ecological crisis. Then, I will discuss various Indigenous conceptualizations of, and cosmological relationships to the natural world. As a non-Indigenous student, raised and educated in a Western (ontological, linguistic, and epistemic) frame of reference, and without prior long-term fieldwork experience with the Peoples discussed in this paper, I am aware of my limitation in understanding, translating, and interpreting Indigenous knowledges, sciences, and wisdoms. Therefore, I will closely follow the interpretations, formulations, and translations of the discussed authors. Moreover, I am careful not to generalize Indigenous languages as I am aware of the vast variety of Indigenous languages that express different cosmologies. However, this paper does build on the premise that Indigenous languages express abstract concepts related to the land and natural world differently than does the English language, thereby following (amongst others) Rarámuri scholar Enrique Salmón (2002). In recognition of the importance of place, I have added a notes section with short information on the Indigenous Peoples I discuss.

    1: The Epistemic Decolonial Turn

    Contrary to what the term Anthropocene suggests, the ecological crisis is not caused by a universal Human, but rather by certain humans behaving within oppressive and exploitative systems, such as capitalism, colonialism, racism, and the patriarchy (Di Chiro 2017, Patel & Moore 2017). These systems are founded on an ontological, epistemic, and linguistic framework that divides the world in hierarchically opposing concepts, including the dichotomies culture/nature, man/woman, colonizer/colonized, and human/nonhuman (Descola 2013, Patel & Moore 2017). Characteristic of these dichotomies is the hierarchical power relation between its counterparts in which one side is active, dominant, and highly valued, whereas the other is passive, to be subjugated, and lower valued (or not at all). Alluding to the social and the natural realm, Braidotti (2022, 75) states that whereas the former has rights and agency, the latter has none, and is accessible and disposable. Indeed, decolonial, Indigenous, and ecofeminist scholarship recognizes the entanglement of oppressive and exploitative systems, and hierarchical dichotomous thinking (cf. Merchant 1990, Di Chiro 2017). More specifically, some scholars show how these systems are entangled with a Christian orientation to the world. Ferdinand (2022, 42) recognizes the influence of Christianity on the justification of colonialism, and refers to ‘Christian colonial inhabitation’, and Patel and Moore (2017) make explicit the link between enslaved labor, capitalism and the Church.

    Following social- and political ecology, and ecofeminism, Malcolm Ferdinand (2020) argues that environmental destruction is inseparable from racial and colonial domination and stems from the settler colonialist’s sense of entitlement in appropriating the planet. In his book Decolonial Ecology: Thinking from the Caribbean World, Ferdinand (2022, 42) further argues that colonial inhabitation was presented as the will of God, and that, after the genocide of the Indigenous Peoples, lands of the Americas were reduced to (exploitable) resources. Hence, the exploitative and oppressive systems can be considered expressions of a Christian cosmology in which history, identity, language, land base, and beliefs connect, secure, and regulate how people within these systems relate to the natural world. As such the oppressive and exploitative systems that have caused the ecological crisis are radically different from how Indigenous Peoples relate to the world.

    Notably, the Christian cosmology is the same ontological, epistemic, and linguistic framework that historically dominates academia, as has been recognized by decolonial- (Ferdinand 2020; Grosfoguel 2007, 217), and Indigenous scholars (Wall Kimmerer 2020). Although Wall Kimmerer has written the Creation story of Skywoman in English, the original is told across various Anishinabee languages. The differences between them are significant. Where English consists for 70% of nouns, Potawami consists of only 30% nouns, the rest is verbs; in Potawami nouns and verbs are animate and inanimate; and whereas European languages often assign gender to nouns, Potawami does not gender the world. In Potawami, one for example does not say ‘hill,’ as in English, but ‘to be a hill’ instead. Rocks, mountains and water and places are all animate, only human made ‘things’ are not (ibid., 53).

    Such linguistic differences express and influence one’s orientation to the world (ibid., 58; Salmón 2000; Flaherty 2001). Moreover, each language contains cosmology-specific concepts that are often difficult to translate, as I will further discuss in section two. Grosfoguel (2007) has therefore coined the term ‘epistemic decolonial turn,’ to call for a broader canon of thought than the Western canon; critical dialogue in what is recognized as a pluriversal world; and taking seriously epistemic cosmologies from (formerly) colonized bodies. The radically different cosmologies, and consequently ways of interacting with the natural world of Indigenous Peoples, that I will discuss in the second part of this essay, are situated within this epistemic decolonial turn.

    2: Indigenous Conceptualizations of, and Cosmological Relationships to, the Natural World

    Challenging western dichotomous thinking, posthuman feminism, Indigenous and decolonial feminists are sharing philosophies that emphasize a reciprocal relationship with land and nature that is centralized around care (Braidotti 2022). This reciprocal relationship is already present in various Indigenous conceptualizations of the natural world. The Yoeme of Sonora, Mexico, and southern Arizona[2] use the term huya ania to describe natural areas outside of their villages (Evers and Molina 1987 in Salmón 2000), which roughly means ‘nurturing life’. The Rarámuri[3] refer to their homeland as gawi wachi, ‘the Place of Nurturing’. The Hawaiian[4] concept ʿĀina, commonly translated as ‘land,’ literally means “that which feeds” (Beamer 2021, 350). Despite these conceptual similarities, among Indigenous Peoples, relationships to land and place are diverse, specific, ungeneralizable, and based on long histories (Lowan 2009, 47).

    This relationality is further reflected in Indigenous scholarship on Land pedagogy. Styres and Zinga (2013) purposefully distinguish ‘Land’ (capitalized), which extends beyond a material fixed space, from ‘land,’ which refers to landscapes as a fixed geographical and physical space including earth, rocks, and waterways. Like Lowan (2009, 47), they explain that “Land is a spiritually infused place grounded in interconnected and interdependent relationships, cultural positioning, and is highly contextualized.” (2013, 300-301). For Kimmerer (2020, 124-125), this is a relationship of love:

    Knowing that you love the earth changes you, cultivates you to defend and protect and celebrate. But when you feel the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.

    Similarly, Innuit[5] have “powerful, intimate, and spiritual connections to country that center love and mutual respect,” for them “the land is alive and ‘nature’ is like another person” (Lobo 2019, 395). In these Indigenous cosmologies relationality to the natural world extends beyond relationality to Land. For Shawn Wilson, an Opaskwayak Cree from Canada[6], for example, relationships extend to interaction with all creation, meaning that relatedness transcends human beings, and is extended to Land, including animals, plants waters, the sky and spirits (Vásquez-Fernández and Ahenakew pii tai poo taa 2020, 67).

    For many Indigenous Peoples land and elements within the natural world are recognized as animate persons or relationships of kin (Salmón 2001, 1327-1332). Whitehouse et al. (2014, 59), for example, note that for Peoples on the Torres Strait Islands within Australia[7], “Land, water and sky become animate through relationships – to ancestors, to plants and animals, and to clouds, hills, rocks and mineral forms.” Knowledge is thus considered ‘living knowledge’. Similarly, Hawaiian scholar Manulani Aluli Meyer (2008, 219 as cited in Tuck et al. 2014, 9) writes:

    Land is our mother. This is not a metaphor. For the Native Hawaiians speaking of knowledge, land was the central theme that drew forth all others. You came from a place. You grew in a place and you had a relationship with a place. This is an epistemological idea […] One does not simply learn about land, we learn best from land.

    Such Indigenous conceptualizations of land and the natural world as persons or kindred relationships not only imply that humans are at an equal standing with the rest of the natural world and land, but it also implies that humans have a certain responsibility (Salmón 2001, 1327-1332). This is also present in Indigenous conceptualizations of sovereignty. In 1977, Hawaiian George Helm, whose words became the philosophical essence of the Aloha ʿĀina movement that challenges American capitalism, exploitation, and misuse of the Hawaiian Islands, notes:

    The truth is, there is man and there is environment, one does not supersede the other. The breath in man is the breath of Papa (the earth). Man is merely the caretaker of the land that maintains his life and nourishes his soul. Therefore, ʿāina is sacred. … My duty is to protect Mother Earth, who gave me life. And to give thanks with humility as well as ask for forgiveness for the arrogance and insensitivity of man. (Beamer 2021, 359)

    Similarly, Mohawk[8] scholar Taiaiake Alfred (2005, 45) points out that having “a spiritual connection with the land established by the Creator gives human beings special responsibilities within the areas they occupy, linking them in a natural and sacred way to their territories […].” Such relations and responsibilities are thus very different from the hierarchical dichotomies from the Christian cosmology.

    Leanne Betaamosake Simpson, Michi Saagiig Nishnaabe[9] scholar, writer, poet, and musician, connects several of the aforementioned points when she argues that through giving more than what we take from aki (the land), intimate webs of relationships between plants, animals, rivers, lakes, and the cosmos will flourish. In ‘Land As Pedagogy,’ she tells the story of Binoojiinh (meaning ‘child’), a nonbinary child, who learns how to extract maple syrup water by looking at a “Ajidamoo” suck from the tree “Ninaatigoog” (Simpson 2017, 146-149). Similarly to both Wall Kimmerer and Manulani Aluli Meyer, the story revolves around the Nishnaabeg values of love, compassion, and understanding, and portrays a relationship to land in which humans “learn both from the land and with the land.” (ibid., 150).  Although there is a wide variety of Indigenous stories and cosmologies, the examples of Indigenous conceptualizations of, and cosmological relationships with the natural world and land discussed above have important similarities that distinguish them from the western dichotomous thinking in the Christian cosmology.

    Conclusion

    This paper sought to connect the wider decolonial project to ecological and environmentalist discourses by looking at different conceptualizations of, and cosmological relationships to, the natural world as reflected in Indigenous languages. I have discussed decolonial and Indigenous scholarship that argues that Western science has historically been dominated with an ontological, epistemic, and linguistic framework that stems from a Christian cosmology. These frameworks consist of a hierarchical dichotomous thinking that separates and elevates humans from the natural world. As noted by decolonial, Indigenous, and ecofeminist scholarship, these are the same frameworks that have fueled the oppressive and exploitative systems of capitalism, colonialism, racism, and the patriarchy which, in turn, have caused the exploitation of the natural world that has resulted in the ecological crisis.

    In order to further decolonize Western academia, two steps need to be taken. First, there needs to be a more widespread awareness of the influence of the Christian cosmology on (a misleadingly assumed secular) academia. This influence is for example visible in conceptualizations of the natural world and humans’ relations to the natural world that remain unquestioned, with exceptions of decolonial and Indigenous scholars, ecofeminists, posthuman- and queer theorists. Second, more space needs to be created for Indigenous cosmologies that have been historically erased, oppressed, or disregarded within academia. Doing so requires the consideration of linguistic differences, and the risk of losing Indigenous cosmological understandings of the natural world when translating. Finally, following Wall Kimmerer (2020), different cosmologies and knowledges should be negotiated without prioritizing either one.

    Bibliography

    Alfred, T. 2005. “Sovereignty,” in Sovereignty Matters: Locations of Contestation and Possibility in Indigenous Struggles for Self-Determination, edited by J. Barker. University of Nebraska Press: Lincoln, NE, 33-50.

    Beamer, Kamanamaikalani. 2021 “He Aliʿi Ka ʿĀina, Ua Mau Kona Ea: Land is the chief, long may she reign.” In Routledge Handbook of Critical Indigenous Studies, edited by Brendan Hokowhity, Aileen Moreton-Robinson, Linda Tuhiwai-Smith, Chris Andersen, and Steve Larkin, 348-361. New York: Routledge.

    Braidotti, Rosi. 2022. “Chapter 3: Decentring Anthropos: Ecofeminism Revisited.” In Posthuman Feminism, 68-104. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Cutting, Janna. 2021. “Anishinaabe Storytelling for Coping and Adapting to Climate Change Impacts.” Major Research Paper presented to The University of Guelph.

    Descola, Philippe. 2013. “Chapter 3: The Great Divide.” In Beyond Nature and Culture, 57-88. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

    Di Chiro, Giovanna. 2017. “Welcome to the white (m)Anthropocene? A feminist-environmentalist critique.” In Rouledge Handbook of Gender and Environment, edited by Sherilyn MacGregor, 487-505. London: Routledge.

    Eve Tuck, Marcia McKenzie, and Kate McCoy. 2014. “Land Education: Indigenous, Post-colonial, and Decolonizing Perspectives on Place and Environmental Education Research,” Environmental Education Research 20(1): 1-23, DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2013.877708.

    Ferdinand, M., A. Chaillou and L. Roblin. 2020. “Why we need a decolonial ecology.” Revue Projet 2, 52-56.

    Ferdinand, Malcolm. 2022. Decolonial Ecology: Thinking from the Caribbean World, edited by Natalia Brizuela, Victoria Collis-Buthelezi and Leticia Sabsay. Translator: Anthony Paul Smith. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Flaherty, Mary. 2001. “How a Language Gender System Creeps into Perception.” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 32(1), 18-31. DOI: 10.1177/0022022101032001005.

    Grosfoguel, Rámon. 2007. “The Epistemic Decolonial Turn: Beyond Political-Economy Paradigms.” Cultural Studies 21(2-3): 211-223. DOI: 10.1080/09502380601162514.

    Lobo, Michele. 2019. “Affective ecologies: Braiding urban worlds in Darwin, Australia.” Geoforum 2016: 393-401.

    Lowan, Greg. 2009. “Exploring Place from an Aboriginal Perspective: Considerations for Outdoor and Environmental Education.” Canadian Journal of Education 12: 42-58.

    Mathews, A. 2020. “Anthropology and the Anthropocene: Criticisms, Experiments, and Collaborations. Annual Review of Anthropology 49, 67-88.

    Merchant, Carolyn. 1990. The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution. San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers.

    National Park Service. 2023. “Native Peoples of the Sonoran Desert: The Yoeme.” Accessed on 3 November, 2023. https://www.nps.gov/articles/yoeme.html.

    Opaskwayak. 2023. “About us.” Accessed on 3 November, 2023. https://opaskwayak.com/about-ocn/.

    Patel, Raj., and Jason W. Moore. 2017. A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature and the Future. Oakland: University of California Press.

    Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe. 2023. “Culture and History.” Accessed on 3 November, 2023. https://www.srmt-nsn.gov/culture_and_history.

    Salmón, Enrique. 2000. “Kincentric Ecology: Indigenous Perceptions of the Human-Nature Relationship.” Ecological Applications 10(5), 1327-1332.

    Simpson, Leanne Betasamosake. 2017. “Land as Pedagogy.” In As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance, 145-174. Minneapolis: University of Minesota Press.

    Styres, Sandra, and Dawn Zinga. 2013. ”The Community-first land-centered Theoretical framework: Bringing a ‘Good Mind’ to Indigenous Education Research.” Canadian Journal of Education 36(2): 284-313.

    Vásquez-Fernández, Andrea, and Cash Ahenakew pii tai poo taa. 2020. “Resurgence of Relationality: Reflections on Decolonizing and Indigenizing ‘Sustainable Development’.” Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 4: 65-70.

    Wall Kimmerer, Robin. 2020. Braiding Sweetgrass. London: Penguin Books.

    Whitehouse, Hilary, Felecia Watkin Lui, Juanita Sellwood, M.J. Barrett, and Philemon Chigeza. 2014. “Sea Country: Navigating Indigenous and Colonial Ontologies in Australian Environment Education,” Environmental Education Research 20(1): 56-69. DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2013.852655.

    Willox, Ashlee Cunsolo, Sherilee L. Harper, Victoria L. Edge, Karen Landman, Karen James D. Ford, the Rigolet Inuit Community Government. 2013. “ The land enriches the soul: On climatic and environmental change, and emotional health and well-being in Rigolet, Nunatsiavut, Canada.” Emotion, Space and Society 6: 14-24. DOI: 10.1016/j.emospa.2011.08.005.

    [1] Anishinaabe is a collective term for the Ojibway (Chippewas), Potawatomi, and Odawa nations who share similar cultures and language. Some sources suggest other groups such as the Ottawa, Algonquin, Slateaux, Mississauga, Nipissing, and Oji-Cree communities to be included in this collective term. The Anishinaabe territory spans from Southern Ontario, the Northern States, Northern Ontaria, and Manitoba, and includes a diverse landscape (Cutting 2021, 10-11). The Anishinaabe speak Anishinaabemowin with around 36.000 speakers today (Cutting 2021).

    [2] The Yoeme, or Yaqui or Hiaki, live in Sonora, Mexico, and southern Arizona. Their homelands include the Río Yaqui valley in Sonora, Mexico, southern Arizona in the United States, and they have communities in Chihuahua and Durango, Mexico. They speak a Uto-Aztecan language. Using their intimate knowledge of the Sonoran Desert landscape, the Yoeme cultivated a variety of crops, including maize (corn), various bean and squash varieties, cotton, wheat, and more. More information can be found on the website of the National Park Service (2023).

    [3] The Rarámuri, also known as Tarahumara, occupy one of the most biologically diverse regions in the world. The homeland, Gawi Wachi, is located in the eastern Sierra Madres of Chihuahua, Mexico. Approximately 60.000 Rarámuri continue to live a traditional lifestyle of horticulture, gathering, and agroforestry (Salmón 2001, 1327-1332).

    [4] The Archipelago of Hawaiʿi consists of eight main islands (Niʿihau, Hawaiʿi, Oʿahu, Maui, Molokaʿi, Lānaʿi, and Kahoʿolawe) and the uninhabited 124 Northwest Hawaiian Islands situated above Kauaʿi, situated in the North Pacific Ocean. The Hawaiian is originally a spoken language, and can be written with Latin/Roman letters since it was first written down by American missionaries. Due to a ban on teaching or speaking Hawaiian language in schools, only around 24.000 people, including self-identified speakers, currently speak Hawaiian.

    [5] The study that is being referred to here was done with the Inuit populations in Rigolet, Nunatsiavut, Labrador, Canada. See Willox et al. (2013) for further information.

    [6] Opaskwayak Cree Nation has over 6000 people, most of whom live on the 15.000 acres of Opaskqayak Cree Nation land which is located in Manitoba, Canada. More information can be found on the Opaskwayak website (2023).

    [7] Whitehouse et al. (2014) focus on various Peoples living on the Torres Strait Islands in the Coral Sea at the far north of tip of Cape York, Australia. They also discuss policies that address Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories.

    [8] The Mohawk people are the most eastern nation of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, or Iroquois Confederacy. Their original homeland is the north eastern region of New York State extending into southern Canada and Vermont. They speak Iroquoian. More information can be found on the website of the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe.

    [9] Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg territory is along the north shore of Chi’Niibish, or Lake Ontario. Chi’Niibish literally means ‘big water,’ and this lake is shared with the Roinonhseshá:ka with whom they have good relationships. The Michi Saagiig Nishnaabe are travelers, meaning they move through their lands rather than settling one place. They are the eastern doorway of the Nishnaabeg nation (Simpson 2021, 2).

  • Symposium 2024: Hopes and Dreams

    26April 2024

    Splijtstof Symposium: Hopes and Dreams 13:00 – 17:00Erasmus Building
    E15.39/41

    We are proud to present Splijtstof’s philosophical symposium of 2024, taking place on Friday, April 26. The theme of this year’s event, matching our upcoming 52-3 publication, is ‘Hopes and Dreams’!

    We invite you to enjoy an afternoon of reflective inquiry and discussion alongside our enthusiastic Symposium Committee and wonderful keynote speakers. Following the event, we also welcome you to grab a drink or a bite to eat in the CultuurCafé. This year’s attending keynote speakers are Dr. Wim de Muijnck (Philosophy of Behavioural Sciences), Dr. Nico Adelhöfer (Donders Sleep & Memory Lab), and Prof. Marc Davidson (Philosophical Ethics and Political Philosophy). Each of these fascinating speakers will engage with ‘Hopes and Dreams’, exploring the philosophical implications of these concepts in their respective disciplines. We welcome you to visit our symposium at any time between 13:00 and 17:00 in room E15.39/41 of the Erasmus Building.

    Symposium Schedule:

    13:00 – Gather in E15:39/41, the heart of Radboud University’s FTR faculty on the Erasmus Building’s 15th Floor

    13:15 – An introduction to ‘Hopes and Dreams’ by our moderator

    13:30 – Lecture by Wim de Muijnck: ‘Escaping from an Open Cell’

    14:15 – Break time in the Coffee Corner of the Erasmus Building’s 15th Floor

    14:40 – Interview with Nico Adelhöfer: ‘What is Lucid Dreaming?’

    15:40 – Lecture by Marc Davidson: An Environmental Ethics Approach to ‘Hopes’

    17:00 – Drinks at the CultuurCafé

    Any changes to the schedule will be announced via @splijtstof on Instagram and updates to this webpage.

    We look forward to seeing you soon!

  • Splijtstof 52-1

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  • Splijtstof 51-4

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  • 51-4 has arrived!

    Dear all, we are happy to announce the arrival of the latest edition of Splijtstof. This issue marks the last time that Max Schermbeck was able to contribute to our magazine, whom I would like to thank for all his hard work in the last year(s). Be sure to check out his last editorial, where he says goodbye to you; our beloved readers! We sincerely hope you have as much enjoyment from reading this issue, as we had in producing it!

    Kindest regards on behalf of all Splijtstof

    Read our latest issue