NICA recommends | Philosophy and Apocalypse – Sandberg Institute Seminar with Günther Anders

Dates: 19 November 2022, 2 December 2022, 13 January 2023
Time: 14:00-16:30
Location: Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam (Fred. Roeskestraat 96, 1076 ED Amsterdam)
Registration: tom.vandeputte@sandberg.nl (for sign-up and readings)

Starting this academic year, the Critical Studies Department at the Sandberg Institute offers an annual programme of seminars in philosophy and critical thought open to the public. This year’s seminar programme, titled “Philosophy and Apocalypse,” will address different philosophical engagements with the idea of the end of the world.

The first series of seminars, convened by Tom Vandeputte, will focus on the work of the German-Jewish philosopher Günther Anders and his concept of a “nuclear theology.” Over the course of three meetings, we will discuss Anders’ account of the implications of the invention of the atomic bomb and the human species’ expanding power of destruction and, at its limit, self-annihilation. A selection of Anders’ essays on the end of time, “nuclear theology” and what he calls an “apocalypse without kingdom” will be read alongside contemporary reflections on nuclear disaster by the philosopher Sabu Kohso and poet Ryoko Sekiguchi.