Workshop from July 2 to 3, 2025 in Kassel

The CELA 2025 conference focuses on the concept of the oceanic as “thinking with water” to explore counter-currents in hegemonic systems and ideologies, and discussing notions of liquefaction and fluidity as metaphors and allegories. The gathering addresses petrified economic and political models such as colonialism and extractivism, and the counter-currents that take on aesthetic forms of care. The discourse of globalization implements a “hydraulic order” in which flows are framed as universal developments while ignoring the counter-currents and frictions of this “liquid modernity” (Bauman 2000), just as it disregards environmental harm.

The conference seeks to juxtapose critical epistemological perspectives and aesthetic approaches on care, fabulated and formulated by arts, literature as social praxis, and other cultural practices, in a productive way that unveils aquatic relationships and dismantles notions of petrified aesthetic forms, thereby creating new common spaces. With the intention of fostering sustainable relationships and immersing ourselves in aquatic ecologies, we aim to enable, identify, and imagine practices of “thinking with care” (Puig de la Bellacasa 2012). “Thinking with water” allows us to surface the contested territories of extractivism and the hegemonic developmentalist currents along with their economic implications. At the same time, we propose reflecting on new fluid dynamics beyond a world of exploitation.

The workshop aims to initiate a discussion from the perspective of ecological humanities and critical reflection to rehearse collaborative relations with the oceanic, including more-than-human beings, beyond the instrumentalization of water: the oceanic not only as an abstract concept and a metaphor, but as a praxis recognizing that “waters are carefully placed or embodied in specific materialities and spacetimes” (Chen 2013).With the perspective of the oceanic, the conference wants to initiate a search for a common vocabulary to recognize aquatic ecologies as eco-social spaces relevant for a transformation beyond an extractivist model.

PROGRAM

Wednesday, July 2
Venue: Raum ZUB, Gottschalkstr. 28a, 34121 Kassel    

2.30 pm | Panel 1: Comparative Literature and Aesthetic Representations (moderated by Liliana Gómez)

2.30 – 3 pm | Jörg Dünne 
Atlántidas pobres. Los balnearios sumergidos de la Argentina y el cuidado de las  ruinas

3 – 3.30 pm | Valeria Wagner
Cuidado con la basura: algunas refiguraciones literarias del bien  común

3.30 – 4 pm | Agnieszka Komorowska
Arrastrados a la orilla: náufragos, ahogados y resucitados en la literatura caribeña

4 – 5 pm | Discussion and Q&A session

5 – 5.15 pm BREAK

5.15 pm | Panel 2: Ecological Humanities (Moderated by Mateo Chacón Pino)

5.15 – 5.45 pm | Susanne Ritzmann
Metabolic Entanglements: Microbial Labor and Waste 

5.45 – 6.15 pm | Julia Schade
Don’t extract it, don’t consume it. Dramaturgies of the Fluid in Amanda Piña’s Performance Work

6.15 – 7 pm | Discussion and Q&A session

7 – 7.15 pm | Results

Thursday, July 3
Venue: Bootshaus der Universität Kassel, Auedamm 27a, 34121 Kassel 

HALL 1

9.15 am | Panel 3: Practices of care: Latin American conceptualizations (moderated by Luisa Standop)

9.15 – 9.45 am | Alejandra Bello
La ternura en tiempos de crueldad y destrucción de la vida

9.45 – 10.15 am | Laura Flórez and Sebastián Giraldo
Verdades anfibias en Puerto Internacional: prácticas psico-espirituales en la búsqueda de personas desaparecidas 

10.15 – 11.15 am | Discussion and Q&A session

11.15 – 11.20 am | Results

11.20 – 11.30 am BREAK

HALL 2

9.15 am | Panel 4: Climate change and society (moderated by Jochen Kemner)

9.15 – 9.35 am | Niuva Avila
La perspectiva infantil en las políticas medio ambientales en Cuba. Un tema pendiente de discusión

9.35 – 9.55 am | Brenda Focas
Narrativas del cambio climático en los medios y su recepción

10 – 10.10 am | Luciana Apaza Laguna
Política hacen todos: un estudio comparado de los actores relevantes de la política climática en Argentina y Brasil desde 2007 a la actualidad

11.10 – 10.20 am | Marinao Beliera
Agriculturas alternativas en el contexto del agronegocio en la Provincia de Buenos Aires: Conceptos, prácticas y conocimientos en disputa (1996-2023)

10.20 – 11.15 am | Discussion and Q&A session

11.15 – 11.20 am | Results

11.20 – 11.30 am BREAK

HALL 1

11.30 am | Panel 5: Critical performativities from the arts (moderated by Laura Flórez)

11.30 – 12 pm | Leon Gabriel
Entre Tierra y Mar: Epistemologías de Islas Costeras

12 – 12.30 pm | Alexis Salas
From the River to ..the Sprinkler? Liquid contra-corrientes in Queer Latinx Ecologies, Activisms, and Artworks under and above Water

12.30 – 1.30 pm | Discussion and Q&A session

1.30 – 1.45 pm | Results and acknowledgements

HALL 2

11.30 am | Panel 6: Ecological change and its effects (moderated by Rebeca Ramos)

11.30 – 11.50 am | Adriana Petra
Crítica ambiental y política en América Latina: encrucijadas de las izquierdas y los progresismos

11.50 – 12.10 am | Eglis Martin
La industria cubana del Níquel: un sector con grandes desafíos

12.10 – 12.20 am | Rocio Ceballos
Financiamiento verde: los casos del Nuevo Banco de Desarrollo (NBD) y el Banco Asiático de Inversión e Infraestructura (BAII)

12.30 – 1.30 pm | Discussion and Q&A session

1.30 – 1.45 pm | Results and acknowledgements

The lectures will be held in Spanish. No registration necessary.

Image: Andres Gallo: Ozeanías