Events

The Sound of Trees: A Symphony of Attentiveness

Join EcoLit's first public event, The Sound of Trees: A Symphony of Mindfulness, with biologist and musician Tarun Nayar, aka Modern Biology, along with resident artists from the South Asian diaspora: Senthuran (flute), Moonlit Brooks (poetry) and Zainab Lax (harp). In collaboration with Cologne's Forest Botanical Garden and urban mushroom farm, Pilzling, an opportunity for collective experience and connection through place-based storytelling, music and poetry.

Start: 7 May 2025 @ 4:00:pm

Finish: 7 May 2025 @ 8:00:pm

Location: Pfingstrosenwiese, Forstbotanischer Garten, Rodenkirchen, Cologne

Global South Studies Center (GSSC) Commoning Dialogues: Sharing, Commoning and Autonomy

An online webinar dialogue between Anna Tsing (University of California, Santa Cruz) and Thomas Widlok (University of Cologne). This commoning dialogue explores the dynamic interplay between commoning, sharing, and personal autonomy, drawing from ethnographic research on sharing economies and alternative exchange systems, while also engaging with recent developments in multispecies anthropology. We discuss the proposition that autonomy is not necessarily opposed to sharing, but that both deserve to be discussed in the context of relational practices of commoning.

Start: 28 Apr 2025 @ 4:00:pm

Finish: 28 Apr 2025 @ 6:00:pm

Location: Online webinar via Zoom

Movie & panel discussion `The Pickers´

This event consists of a film showing of "The Pickers" and panel discussion. '"The Pickers" is a journey to European fields where our fruit and vegetables are grown: in Southern Italy, Seydou from Mali is picking oranges. He has no contract and is paid per crate. He lives in a self-built hut in a settlement without water and electricity. Blueberries in Portugal, olives in Greece, strawberries in Spain – one million migrants are currently working in European fields. The pickers are the mobile workforce that fills our supermarkets’ baskets, most of them without contracts or minimum wages, some without papers or with high debts with agents.'

Start: 25 Apr 2025 @ 6:30:pm

Finish: 25 Apr 2025 @ 9:00:pm

Location: University of Cologne - Senatssaal der Universität Köln (Albertus-Magnus-Platz), 50931 Köln

MESH Research Fruits: Felix Dorn: A New Frontier of Decarbonization? Green Hydrogen in South America

Green hydrogen (GH2) is increasingly regarded as a key element of the global energy transition. In South America, GH2 projects have raised expectations for economic growth, job creation, and investment, while also being framed as pathways toward a CO₂-neutral future.

Start: 9 Apr 2025 @ 5:45:pm

Finish: 9 Apr 2025 @ 6:45:pm

Location: Felix Dorn (University of Vienna)

MESH Cross-pollinators Roundtable: The Beautiful Risks of Aesthetic Experience – A Public Conversation

This public roundtable brings together scholars from various fields in the humanities with a joint interest in the role of aesthetic experience in shaping, challenging, and transforming formal education in the humanities and in literary and cultural learning at school.

Start: 8 Apr 2025 @ 5:45:pm

Finish: 8 Apr 2025 @ 6:45:pm

Location: Auerbach Library, MESH (Weyertal 59, third floor), University of Cologne

Upcoming and Past

The Sound of Trees: A Symphony of Attentiveness

Global South Studies Center (GSSC) Commoning Dialogues: Sharing, Commoning and Autonomy

Movie & panel discussion `The Pickers´

MESH Research Fruits: Felix Dorn: A New Frontier of Decarbonization? Green Hydrogen in South America

MESH Cross-pollinators Roundtable: The Beautiful Risks of Aesthetic Experience – A Public Conversation