Ursula Mayer, Atom Spirit, 2016 Production stills. © Ursula Mayer

What is Human?

Two lectures on the science and philosophy of the human condition

21.1 2017 – 11.2 2017

Stockholm

Moderna Museet together with Stockholm School of Economics Art Initiative, are proud to present two lectures by two world renowned thinkers of the human condition. Philosopher Catherine Malabou and Scientist and futurist Andrew Snyder-Beattie will in two separate lectures explore what it means to be human, both today and in the future.

The lectures are produced on the occasion of the exhibition The New Human in cooperation with Stockholm School of Economics Art Initiative.

Video documentation from the lectures

Portrait photo Catherine Malabou
Catherine Malabou. Photo: Guillaume Darribau/Fractures Collective

About Catherine Malabou

Catherine Malabou is professor of philosophy at Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP), Kingston University. She has written extensively on contemporary French and German philosophy but it is with her encounter with neuroscience that have distinguished her research.

About the lecture

Catherine Malabou’s lecture is titled “The Brain of History or the Mentality of the Anthropocene” and will explore topics of the human condition and humanity’s disruption of both earth’s geology and biology. The lecture will further explore Malabou’s approach to renewing an interchange between traditional philosophy and the hard sciences.

Portrait photo Andrew Snyder-Beattie
Andrew Snyder-Beattie. Photo: Fisher Studios

About Andrew Snyder-Beattie

Andrew Snyder-Beattie is Director of Research at the Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University, where he works with, among others Nick Bostrom, on issues relating to existential risk.

About the lecture

Andrew Snyder-Beattie’s lecture, titled ”Existential Risk and Humanity’s Future”, will explore existential risks: threats that could cause our extinction or destroy the potential of Earth-originating intelligent life. In it he will explore the implications of population ethics, personal identity, and altruism, as well as specific risks that pose a threat to humanity.

Contact: Camilla Carlberg, curator