William Rowlandson - Thinking like a Mushroom. Ecosophy: on rewilding the psychosphere

Подробнее о видео

Please support our work and enable us to continue to share these talks for free by donating at www.paypal.me/breakingconventionuk

Thinking like a Mushroom. Ecosophy: a meditation on rewilding the psychosphere.

This presentation forms part of a wider research and teaching project in which I approach questions of conservation, ecology and the environment from perspectives and methodologies of Arts & Humanities. This leads to an articulation of what Arne Naess would call both an ecophilosophy – ‘the study of problems common to ecology and philosophy,’ and an ecosophy: ‘a philosophical world-view or system inspired by the conditions of life in the ecosphere.’ Psychedelic studies is central to this exploration and to this ecosophical vision, constituting a process of wilding: fields are crossed, borders left to grow, epistemologies entangled, ontologies entwined, reality tunnels enmeshed, ideologies composted. I build upon the research of Gandy (2022), Gandy et al (2022), Mellor et. al. (2022), Forstmann et. al. (2023) and other recent studies, in their exploration of ecodelia, psychedelic-inspired nature-connection, biophilia, nature mysticism and pro-environmental behaviour. Psychedelic experiences, as documented in decades of phenomenological accounts, and as reflected in ethnographic narratives, tend to increase a subject’s vision of inter-relationship across beings within ecosystems. What are the cognitive mechanisms by which a thinking subject – instructed in the mechanistic and materialist paradigm of western education – approaches another subject such as a wild animal or tree as a conscious, self-reflexive and sovereign being? How does this lead to a consideration of subjects we are taught to be unconscious, such as a woodland, river or mountain, as self-aware beings? I approach these fertile dialogues with a reading of the land ethics of Aldo Leopold and with the ecosophy of Arne Naess, exploring the ethical and practical consequences of this enhanced field of inter-relationship. I weave into the narrative my decades-long research into the imaginal, the animistic (and panpsychist) implications and drawing on what Jack Hunter calls ‘ontological flooding’ – the perception of greater, wider and more diverse realms of being in ecosystems that stretch out multidimensionally. ‘I introduce one ecosophy,’ wrote Naess, ‘arbitrarily called Ecosophy T. You are not expected to agree with all of its values and paths of derivation, but to learn the means for developing your own systems or guides, say, Ecosophies X, Y, or Z.’ Taking Naess’ generous invitation to develop my own system, I present my vision of Ecosophy P (and the P is silent.)

Bio:
I have worked since 2005 at the University of Kent as Senior Lecturer in Hispanic Studies, following Associate Lectureships at the Universities of Exeter and Aberdeen. I am author of books and articles on Latin American cultural and political history, Cuban history (with particular focus on the community-led projects of recovery – such as urban agriculture – following the collapse of the Soviet Union), Cuban literature and film, Borges, Swedenborg, mysticism, psychedelics, the Imaginal, and the Daimonic. My current teaching and research interests focus on the contribution of Humanities and Modern Languages to the discourses of Sustainability and Ecology. I am convenor of a co-taught Modern Languages module SCL505 Cultures of Sustainability, which considers the wide-ranging definitions of sustainability and of the contribution to the discourse from Humanities subjects, and analyses a range of case studies representing the four disciplines of Modern Languages in SECL at Kent: French, German, Italian and Hispanic Studies. I am involved in many initiatives focused on Sustainability at the University of Kent. Off-campus I am involved in many initiatives grounded on Sustainability. Co-founder and Deputy Chair of Canterbury Climate Action Partnership (CCAP) Founding member of the Centre for Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred (formerly the MA in Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred at Canterbury Christ Church University) Canterbury SDG Forum Allotment-holder, gardener, composter, vermiphile & mycophile (who doesn’t love worms and fungus?), rewilder, proud tree-hugger, and drummer with Whitstable’s Samba Pelo Mar.