Arranged by the “European Forum for the Study of Religion and the Environment” and the “Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research”, and hosted by the Faculty of Arts, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), and the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters (DKNVS).
The current scientific, political and public discussions about how to mitigate, and adapt to, impacts of global climate change are dominated by propositions for technological and economic problem solutions. However ecologically informed and sustainable some of the proposed strategies are, they are shaped by the limits of contemporary mechanistic and economy-oriented worldviews that tend to externalise nature. While the reductionist worldview played a dominant role both in creating regional material wealth and in causing the current dangerous environmental crises – of which global climate change is only the peak of the iceberg – it becomes more and more obvious that modern (industrialised) societies are in need of a cultural, or spiritual,
reinstatement if the Earth is to take a sustainable path into the future.
Given the massive, worldwide problems that are to be expected under climate and environmental change; the fact that a large part of the world’s population is not (yet) subject to the technocratic worldview; and shortcomings of current strategies and policies, it is imperative to complement the existing technological and economically oriented problem solutions with alternative prespectives that integrate the entanglement of humans and their environment in their narratives.
The focus of this workshop is on what cultural predicaments contribute to global climate/environmental change, how religion in particular works in critical (catastrophic) processes of environmental change, how humans can live in and with the ongoing crisis, and what new orientations could take place.
Specific topics addressed are:
• How are “tipping points” in nature related to “tipping points” in culture?
• How can the study of values, visions, spiritualities and images of life contribute to a deeper understanding of the interplay of nature, culture and the environmental challenge obvious in global climate change?
• Do we need a renewed understanding of ritualisation in the context of global change, and how are aesthetics and ethics intertwined in religious practices with regard to the environment? How can aesthetic and artistic explorations of landscape change interact with scientific and religious views?
• What kind of culture/spirituality is powerful under global change (e.g. eco-spirituality as it appears in old and in new religious traditions and processes)?
• How are indigenous cultures responding to environmental change?
• What can we learn from environmental history, with regard to our own European history of civilisation, modernisation and globalisation?
The workshop is arranged in a series of cooperation between the “European Forum for the Study of Religion and the Environment”, <relnateur/>, and the “Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research”, <> and it is sponsored by the Faculty of Arts at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), and the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters (DKNVS). It will take place in Trondheim from October 9 (afternoon) to October 11 (noon), 2008. Five sessions will approach the theme in different sections. Contributions will be given by scholars from Climate Science, Religious Studies, Theology, Cultural Studies, Environmental History, and Visual Arts.
The sessions will take place at the University´s main building and its “Globalrommet” on the 2nd floor (see map below). Participants need to book their lodgings, either by themselves or assisted by the workshop secretary (see the list of hotels below, please ask the reception to achieve the university price). The seminary cost incl. all meals (Thursday and Friday dinner and Saturday lunch) are 1200:-NOK (153:-€) . Trondheim, a medieval pilgrimage centre, can be approached by train (from Oslo, ca 10 hours) or flight (from Oslo, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, London, Stockholm, with SAS, KLM, Norwegian). A shuttle bus from the airport takes you directly to the hotels down town.
For more information and registration please contact:
Kari B. Berg, Department of Archaeology and Religious Studies, <kari.berg@hf.ntnu.no>, phone +47-73 59 65 78 Please register at latest by 22 September.
Nord-Helgeland prosti arrangerer et seminar om økoteologi ved Petter Dass-museet på Alstahaug 24. og 25. september. Se vedlagt invitasjon for mer informasjon: Økoteologi sept 2008 invitasjon (pdf)
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