#181 Facing Gaia: Lectures on the Political Theology of Nature by Bruno Latour, Gifford Lecture Series 2013

RIP Bruno Latour (1947-2022)

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In 2013, philosopher Bruno Latour delivered his lecture series “Facing Gaia: Six Lectures on the Political Theology of Nature” at the St. Cecilia Hall inside the University of Edinburgh. These are the six lectures:

• Lecture 1: Once Out of Nature

• Lecture 2: The New Climatic Regime

• Lecture 3: The Puzzling Face of a Secular Gaia

• Lecture 4: Anthropocene and the Destruction of the Globe

• Lecture 5: War of the Worlds

• Lecture 6: Inside the "Parliaments of Nature"

For further context, you can read the full discussion guide (144 pages) here. Here's a quick intro taken from the discussion guide (which was dedicated to Continental philosopher Peter Sloterdijk):

Summary of the lectures:

Those six lectures in ‘natural religion’ explore what it could mean to live at the epoch of the Anthropocene when what was until now a mere décor for human history is becoming the principal actor. They confront head on the controversial figure of Gaia, that is, the Earth understood not as system but as what has a history, what mobilizes everything in the same geostory. Gaia is not Nature, nor is it a deity. In order to face a secular Gaia, we need to extract ourselves from the amalgam of Religion and Nature. It is a new form of political power that has to be explored through a renewed attempt at political theology composed of those three concepts: demos, theos and nomos. It is only once the multiplicity of people in conflicts for the new geopolitics of the Anthropocene is recognized, that the ‘planetary boundaries’ might be recognized as political delineations and the question of peace addressed. Neither Nature nor Gods bring unity and peace. ‘The people of Gaia’, the Earthbound might be the ‘artisans of peace’.

The lectures are organized by groups of two, the two first ones deal with the question of Natural Religion per se and show that the notion is confusing because on the one hand 'nature' and 'religion' share too many attributes and, on the other, the two notions fail to register the originality of scientific practice and the specificity of the religious regime of enunciation.

Once the pleonasm of Natural Religion is pushed aside, it becomes possible to take up, in the next two lectures, the question,first of Gaia as it has been conceived by James Lovelock and of the Anthropocene, as it has been explored by geologists and climate scientists. It is thus possible to differentiate the figure of the Earth and of the agencies that populate it from the notion of nature and of the globe thus bringing to the fore the geostory to which they all belong.

In the last two lectures, after the notion of Natural Religion has been put aside, and after the complete originality of Gaia and geostory have been foregrounded, it becomes possible to reopen the political question at the heart of what will be life at the Anthropocene. Once the key question of war has been introduced, the search for a peace along the delineations allowed by politically relevant 'planetary boundaries' to which Earthbound (the new word for Humans) accept to be bound become again possible.

Credits:

Art Credit: Egyptian Fragment of Queen's Face, Amarna Period, Ancient Egypt, Metropolitan Museum of New York. Carved in yellow jasper. Creative Commons.

Source Material, University of Edinburgh, 2013. Fair Use.

Ending Song: Anastasia Huppmann performs Beethoven, Piano Sonata No.30 in E major. Creative Commons.

Interlude Song: Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 4 in E-flat major, performed by Burhan Erdemir. Creative Commons.

Intro Song: Schubert, Impromptu No.3 in G-flat major, performed by Max John. Creative Commons.