Public talk: Vegetality and Metamorphosis: Lessons from the Middle | Michael Marder

When plants emerge in the spotlight of theoretical and practical attention in the early part of the twenty-first century, we start grappling with the meaning of vegetality. What is the being or the essence of plants, who are in an ongoing flux of becoming? How does this vegetal being overflow the confines of the biological kingdom Plantae, touching and indwelling other modes of existence, including the human? In this talk, we will reflect on the different senses of vegetality before embarking on the fascinating journey where we accompany a germinating seed in careful observation and thought. Combined, these reflections and observations hold the promise of doing nothing less than transforming our own thinking and being in the world.
 

Michael Marder is IKERBASQUE Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU), Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain. His writings span the fields of ecological theory, phenomenology, and political thought. He is the author of numerous scientific articles and monographs, including Plant-Thinking (2013); The Philosopher’s Plant (2014); Dust (2016), Energy Dreams (2017), Heidegger (2018), Political Categories (2019), Pyropolitics (2015, 2020); Dump Philosophy (2020); Hegel's Energy (2021); Green Mass (2021), Philosophy for Passengers (2022), The Phoenix Complex (2023), Time Is a Plant (2023), and, with Edward S. Casey, The Place of Plants (2023). For more information, consult his website michaelmarder.org.

Image;Seed, Linum usitatissimum, Chernobyl Herbarium, Anaïs Tondeur, 2011-ongoing.