Overline: Tuesday Talk

Headline: Patterns of Aliveness – an Emerging Theory for Stewarding Sustainability Transformation

The term Anthropocene has raised awareness that humans are responsible for the planet as a whole. But will the emerging sense of responsibility grow quickly enough to induce a change in human behavior? Current human decision-making and implementation processes at global and local levels are locked in mindsets and operational logics that have led to the very overstepping of planetary boundaries.

In her lecture, Petra Kuenkel, co-founder of the Collective Leadership Institute in Potsdam and member of the Club of Rome, argues that exploring the concept of patterns as a key constituting element for the way life emerges, evolves, disintegrates and regenerates can greatly enhance the human capacity to successfully engage in sustainability transformation. She looks at how cognition theory, ecology, and architecture have captured the issue of patterns, and emphasizes how sentience, or a subjective feeling of aliveness, can inform practical ways of stewarding sustainability transformation.

When?
Tuesday the 20th of March at 2 pm.

Where?
Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) Potsdam, Helmholtzstraße 5, Canteen.

Duration:
30-minute lecture followed by a 30-minute discussion.