Monday, 8 November 2021, 7.30 pm, diffrakt | centre for theoretical periphery
Conversation with
Tomás Sánchez Criado | Martín Savransky | Melanie Sehgal
– PLEASE NOTE: The event is now fully booked. –
In Around The Day in Eighty Worlds: Politics of the Pluriverse, Martín Savransky calls for a radical politics of the pluriverse amid the ongoing devastation of the present. In an epoch marked by colonialism and ecological devastation, he draws on the pragmatic pluralism of William James to develop what he calls a “pluralistic realism” – an understanding of the world as simultaneously one and many, ongoing and unfinished, underway and yet to be made. Savransky explores the radical multifariousness of reality by weaving key aspects of James’s thought together with divergent worlds and stories: of Magellan’s circumnavigation, of sorcery in Mozambique, of God’s felt presence among a group of evangelicals in California, of visible spirits in Zambia, and of ghosts in the wake of the 2011 tsunami in Japan. Throughout, he experiments with these storied worlds to dramatize new ways of approaching the politics of radical difference and the possibility of transforming reality. By exploring and constructing relations between James’s pluralism and the ontological turn in anthropology, Savransky offers a new conceptualization of the pluriverse that fosters modes of thinking and living otherwise.
Martín Savransky, Melanie Sehgal, and Tomás Sánchez Criado will probe the relation of Around the Day in Eighty Worlds to work in contemporary philosophy, anthropology, and decolonial thought on pragmatism, speculation – and, indeed, pluralism, radical and otherwise!
In cooperation with the Institute of Speculative and Critical Inquiry.
Pandemic: Since the event is an in-person event and the number of participants thus, in accordance with current COVID-19 regulations, strictly limited, anyone who would like to attend will need to register in advance with a short message to mail@diffrakt.space. Following the 2G rule, masks will not be required, but all attendees will have to present either proof of vaccination or proof of recent recovery. The room is equipped with air filtration devices, but given the dynamic situation, we would also like to ask you, if possible, to test yourselves with a rapid test ahead of the event.
