Many people today fear that there will be no future for our planet and all the living beings which live on it without a radical evolution of our current world. This cannot happen without changing our way of bringing up and educating children, of relating to our natural and cultural environment, and of conceiving of theory and culture. Two contributors to Towards a New Human Being (Palgrave 2019) – Andrea Wheeler (Iowa State University, USA) and Andrew Bevan (University College London) – will briefly expound their own proposals for the emergence of a new humanity and a new world. First, Luce Irigaray, the main editor of the volume, will present the intention behind this cultural and political project, which arose from To Be Born, her most recent book (Palgrave, 2017). Then we anticipate a discussion of our proposals and some other suggestions from the participants in the meeting. Books will be available at a discount, with a dedication for people who want it.
Luce Irigaray is one of the leading thinkers of our age. She is director of research in philosophy at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique ( Paris ). She is the author of more than thirty books translated into various languages, the most recent of which are Sharing the World (2008), In the Beginning, She Was (2012), Through Vegetal Being (co-authored with Michael Marder, 2016) and To Be Born (2017). She is also the co-editor (with Michael Marder) of Building a New World (2015), a volume in which early-career researchers from her seminars explore new ways of thinking in order to promote a world-wide community respectful of differences between the sexes, generations, cultures and traditions.
Andrea Wheeler is Associate Professor of Architecture at Iowa State University and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge. She teaches classes on Green and Sustainable Architecture at undergraduate and graduate levels and is a studio instructor. Since completing her PhD on the philosophy of Luce Irigaray she has taken interest in lifestyle change, the actual performance of buildings and challenging the sustainability agenda in architecture. Most recently, she has presented papers at the conferences organized and hosted by Luce Irigaray: “Thinking Love” ( University of Bristol, 2016) and To Be Born (University of Sussex, 2017).
Andrew Bevan is completing his PhD at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University London, UK. His research focuses on affect in philosophy and neurobiology. He is author of “The Plasticity of Empathy” in Thinking Catherine Malabou (2018).