Invitation to the International Symposium: Elemental Pathways Through Nature: Beyond Anthropocentrism and Ecocentrism

The Institute for Philosophical and Religious Studies of the Science and Research Centre Koper (ZRS Koper) is organizing the symposium Elemental Pathways Through Nature: Beyond Anthropocentrism and Ecocentrism, which will take place on 15–16 June at the Centre for Humanities of ZRS Koper (Kreljeva 6, Koper).

Over the course of two days, the symposium will bring together international scholars from the fields of philosophy, religion, humanities, and cultural studies. Participants will explore new approaches to understanding nature, the elements, and the human place in the world.

The event will be opened on behalf of ZRS Koper by Dr Lenart Škof, Head of the Institute for Philosophical and Religious Studies at ZRS Koper, together with his colleague Dr Pier Francesco Corvino. The first day of the symposium will be divided into a morning session on elemental theology and an afternoon session on elemental philosophy. The keynote lecture will be delivered by the renowned ecologist and philosopher Dr David Abram of the University of Oxford, who will present the topic On the Spherical Shape of Time.

The second day of the symposium will focus on environmental imagination and elemental wisdom. Among the speakers will also be Dr Maja Bjelica and Dr Petri Berndtson, collaborators of the Institute for Philosophical and Religious Studies at ZRS Koper. Their announced lecture is entitled Experiencing the Elements: Salt-working as Environmental Wisdom.

A special artistic lecture will be delivered by Marko Pogačnik on the theme Intelligence of Nature and its Elemental Beings.

The event is supported by the THuNB project – Temperamental Roots of the Human-Nature Bond (HORIZON-WIDERA-2024-TALENTS-02, project no. 101244237), funded by the European Union, and by the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency (ARIS) within the research programme Liminal Spaces: Areas of Cultural and Societal Cohabitation in the Age of Risk and Vulnerability (P6-0279) and the project Nature-Centred Traditions in the Green Transition: Case Study of Nature Worship of Primorska(J7-70269).