Inhuman Caress (Or, Cruelty and Vulnerability)
October 23, 2021, 12pm
The Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts is proud to host the second part of the year-long symposium: On the Anthropocene: Either/Or. Launched in spring 2021, with a series of lectures by renowned theorists and philosophers, the symposium addresses the role of art and philosophy in relation to ecology, climate change, co-existence, and sustainability as an existential urgency of our times.
The second lecture of the fall 2021 series, Dejan Lukic’s “Inhuman Caress (Or, Cruelty and Vulnerability)”, will be held on Saturday, October 23, 12–2pm EDT. The lecture is free and open to the public. Register here.
About the lecture
We are still waiting for the proper philosophical investigation of cruelty. Especially when we consider the non-human relations, within the so-called sphere of nature. Certainly, when we look at the natural world, the notions of ethics, beauty, and cruelty become more indistinguishable. This talk will examine the fragile lines that separate these experiential notions with the help of artists, writers, and philosophers. To this end we will briefly consider the work of Edith Stein, Elias Canetti, Ernst Junger, Elena Guro, Jean-Francois Lyotard, and Mynona. Our impending hope is to summon a veritable ethics of the future.
Dejan Lukić is an Assistant Professor at IDSVA. He trained as an anthropologist (PhD, Columbia University, 2007) and his research encompasses continental philosophy, science and religion, art and ecology. He is engaged in the development of what could be called avant-garde philosophy and multi-ontology. Consequently, he is interested in ways in which art crosses into life. He has published two books and numerous catalogue essays. He is currently writing a multi-volume manuscript titled Deranged Vivarium: Variations on Coexistence. He lives and works between two places: the high desert of New Mexico and an Adriatic island in Croatia.
