"The Coming Catastrophe": Rebekka Ladewig on "The Last American. Narrating the Afterlife of Civilisation"

The coming catastrophe poses a challenge to thinking. Only recently have the interrelated events of human-induced climate change and mass extinction begun to unfold as a global media event of proportional magnitude. The proliferation of discourses around impending anthropogenic doom seems to have reached a virtualtipping point, from which there is no return to a “business as usual”-attitude. As the environmental conditions on which all human life depends change in ever more alarming rates, there seem to be few aspects of life, of policy making, and of theoretical work, that can remain unchanged. Scholars in the field of cultural and media theory, particularly in Weimar, are used to observing phenomena of change in terms of their historical becoming. While the identification of the historical causes (and causers) of anthropogenic change is decisive for the assessment of “what there is to be done”, the current situation is unique in that it also challenges habitual modes of thinking and forces us to train our eyes on the things to come.

As a part of this semesters "Bauhaus.Module", the lecture series "The Coming Catastrophe" invites everyone to Rebekka Ladewig's upcoming lecture on "The Last American. Narrating the Afterlife of Civilisation".

Rebekka Ladewig studied Cultural History and Theory, History of Art and Philosophy at the University of Florence, Leuphana University of Lüneburg and at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. She was a research associate at the Institute of Cultural History and Theory at Humboldt Universität zu Berlin and in the research group »Cultural Theory and its Genealogies« of the Excellence Cluster »Topoi«. In 2012 she completed her PhD with a thesis on orientation as implicit knowledge. She is cofounder and editor of the magazine »ilinx. Berliner Beiträge zu Kulturwissenschaft« and the book series »ilinx-Kollaborationen« at Fundus/PhiloFineArts, Hamburg. In recent years she has worked as an author and publisher of artistic publications and as an assistant lecturer, for example at the Kunstuniversität Linz (The University of Art and Design Linz) and at the MSA – Münster School of Architecture. Her current research is on the arrow as a sign in the context of Cultural and Media Theory and the history of the arrow as a sign. She analyses the semiotic career of the arrow as a sign in the modern age based on the material background of the arrow as part of the bow’s technical fabric and its practical application.

Topic: "The Last American. Narrating the Afterlife of Civilisation"
Date: 29th October 2019
Time: 19:00-20:30 Uhr
Location: R 015, Bauhausstraße 11