On June 25, 2024, we had the pleasure of welcoming Dr. Henrike Kohpeiß to Eichstätt where she held a guest lecture and then led a workshop with our fellows the following day. Henrike is a philosopher and postdoctoral researcher at the SFB 1171 “Affective Societies” at the Free University of Berlin.
During her lecture, “Respect for Reality – Unfeeling and Grief in the Ecological Crisis,” she addressed the lack of recognition for the changing reality under accelerating climate crisis, through the strange absence of this imminent threat from imaginaires of the everyday to concrete consequences and responses. From an affective focus, Henrike used concepts from critical theory and Freudian psychoanalysis and delved into the workings of neoliberal exploitation and colonial histories to argue that the work of mourning, as formulated by Freud, could offer a useful way to approach the overpowering challenges posed by climate crisis. Through this work of mourning, she argued, we can gain a “respect for reality” that holds the many contradictions of contemporary political and material constellations.
The following morning, Henrike held a workshop and invited our PhD students to discuss her work on bourgeois coldness. She developed this concept in her disseratation, Bürgerliche Kälte: Affekt und koloniale Subjektivität, to explain power relations in relation to affect in European contexts. In 2023, she published her dissertation as a book in German. Henrike shared a forthcoming paper in English to discuss at the workshop and we look forward to seeing this fantastic work in print.
We would like to thank Henrike for coming to Eichstätt and sharing her insights with us!
((I kept the original underneath in case I changed it too much – can delete as needed))
On June 25, 2024, we had the pleasure of welcoming Dr. Henrike Kohpeiß in Eichstätt. She gave a guest lecture and taught a workshop for our fellows the following day. Henrike is a philosopher and postdoctoral researcher at the SFB 1171 “Affective Societies” at the Free University of Berlin.
In her guest lecture “Respect for Reality – Unfeeling and Grief in the Ecological Crisis,” she addressed the strange absence of the imminent threat and concrete consequences of the accelerating climate crisis. To explain this argument, Henrike used concepts from critical theory and Freudian psychoanalysis delving into the workings of neoliberal exploitation and colonial histories. According to Henrike, the work of mourning, as formulated by Freud, could offer a useful way of approaching the overpowering challenges the climate crisis poses. Through this work of mourning, she argued, we can gain a “respect for reality” that holds the many contradictions of contemporary political and material constellations.
In her workshop, on June 26, Henrike invited our PhD students to discuss her work on bourgois coldness. In her dissertation, entitled Bürgerliche Kälte: Affekt und koloniale Subjektivität, she has developed this concept to explain the power structures in relation to affects in European contexts. In 2023, she published her dissertation as a book in German. We had the honor of reading a paper in English that will soon be published and present her theses to an English speaking audience.
We would like to thank Henrike for coming to Eichstätt and sharing her insights with us!