The boundaries of the human are under strain. Climate change reveals humanity as a geological force both destabilising and destabilised by the Earth system. Global pandemics highlight the microbial entanglements on which survival depends. Authoritarian movements redraw lines of inclusion and exclusion within the species. Artificial intelligence and biotechnology blur distinctions between human and machine. Can ‘humanity’ still function as a shared point of reference?

This meeting aims to explore how the idea of ‘humanity’ is being unsettled, fragmented, and displaced across multiple domains.

Bringing together researchers from the University of St Andrews, in Scotland, and Associate Laboratory IN2PAST, in Portugal, as well as colleagues from other universities, the discussion combines ongoing research on different periods, geographies and themes, questioning relations between human and other humans, human and other species/Nature, and human and other (technical) things.

Admission: Free

Target audience: researchers and other audiences interested in the topic

Place: Edições do Saguão – Rua António Patrício, 9, 1700-049 Lisboa (Coruchéus – Alvalade)

Programme: The Crises of the Human