Social Anthropology Seminar - Dr Nina Holm-Vohnsen - Aarhus
| Dates: | 28 January 2019 |
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| Times: | 16:00 - 18:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Social Sciences |
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| Speaker: | Dr Nina Holm-Vohnsen |
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Social Anthropology Seminar
Monday, 28th January 2019
Dr Nina Holm-Vohnsen - Aarhus University
“Mars, Polydomes, Other Digressions In Political Thinking”
In literature, a digression sits in a text as a self-contained, coherent bubble, seemingly unrelated to the main story while actually illustrating it by adding a different flavour or depth to its protagonists or to the subject of the treatise. In this paper, I want to argue that the persistent human construction of utopias serve a similar function for human political and social life. The recurrent human creation of perfectly coherent and isolated mini-worlds, carefully cleared of unwanted elements (be they bacteria, individuals, or societal institutions) serve the dual purpose of absconding from the current state of affairs and of being a running commentary on the messy incoherency of the world. In this paper, I explore the relationship between utopia and their worldly distortions through a reading of the following examples: The Mexican munk Quirogas’ implementation of Utopia; the anthropological ‘village’; the colonization of Mars; the attempted construction of liberalist micro nations in international waters; and the use of polydomes in botanics.
Second Floor Boardroom 2.016 / 017
Arthur Lewis Building
Time 4:15 to 6:00pm
(Tea and coffee available outside the room from 4:00pm)
ALL WELCOME!
Speaker
Dr Nina Holm-Vohnsen
Role: Speaker
Organisation: Aarhus University
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
2.016 /17 - 2nd floor Boardroom
Arthur Lewis Building
Manchester
