Elemental Aesthetics for the Anthropocene: Earth Air Fire Water by Gray Kochhar-Lindgren

I maintain that there is in Nature an infinite power of thinking. --Spinoza, Letter 32 to Oldenburg

We first set the stage with a very brief framing of the infinite power of (non)human thinking, how we are addressed by the Anthropocene, and of the pedagogical necessity of attending to zones of care, attention, knowledge, and transformation through transdisciplinary project participation. Guided by four short texts on Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, we began to modestly reorient our elemental relations. Throughout the session we interacted with one another via voice and chat as we created a provisional community of practice.

BIO: Gray Kochhar-Lindgren is Director of the Common Core at the University of Hong Kong (https://commoncore.hku.hk/). A Fulbright Scholar and recipient of the UGC Outstanding Teaching Award (Teams), he has also taught in Switzerland, Germany, and the United States. He initiated GLADE (Global Liberal Arts Design Experiments) and is co-creating, with students, Critical Zones: Gender, Cities, and Well-Being and The Passion Project: Creating Work You Love. The author of Urban Arabesques, he is currently working on Noir: ReOrienting Thought, Art, and Ecology.