The Finnish Karl Marx Society, Helsinki Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities (HSSH), Helsinki Institute Of Sustainability Science (HELSUS), and Resilient and Just Systems (RESET) are jointly organizing a two-day international workshop with public keynotes on fossil capitalism and the impending sustainability transitions. The interdisciplinary event focuses on transitions away from the fossil-fueled civilization – beyond the hegemonic paradigms of techno-optimism.
The event is free to attend and open for all – please submit your registration for workshop and keynote sessions below.
Venue: Main Building (Fabianinkatu 33), room Tekla Hultin (F3003)
Simon Michaux, Toni Ruuska, Eeva Houtbeckers
Stream link:
https://video.helsinki.fi/unitube/live-stream.html?room=l69
Venue: Tiedekulma Stage (Yliopistonkatu 4)
Stream link:
https://tiedekulmamedia.helsinki.fi/fi/web/tiedekulma/player/webcast?eventId=309865801
Venue: Metsätalo (Unioninkatu 40), B116 (Hall 1)
Stream link:
https://video.helsinki.fi/unitube/live-stream.html?room=l15
Venue: Main Building (Fabianinkatu 33), room F3017
Sakari Säynäjoki & Tere Vadén
Stream link:
https://video.helsinki.fi/unitube/live-stream.html?room=l73
Venue: Main Building (Fabianinkatu 33), room F3017
Vesa Oittinen & Michiru Nagatsu
Stream link:
Marx's degrowth communism and just transitions away from fossil capitalism
Kohei Saito is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tokyo and HSSH Visiting Professor at the University of Helsinki. His work centres on ecology and political economy from a Marxist perspective. His recent best-selling book, Slow Down (Astra House, 2024, Japanese edition 2020), has been credited with sparking a resurgence of interest in Marxist thought throughout Japan and internationally. His other widely credited works include Marx in the Anthropocene (Cambridge University Press, 2023) and Karl Marx's Ecosocialism (Monthly Review Press, 2017).
Stream link:
https://tiedekulmamedia.helsinki.fi/fi/web/tiedekulma/player/webcast?eventId=309865801
Labour, ecology, and reproduction in the age of climate change
Commentary by Reetta Toivanen (UH, HELSUS)
Stefania Barca is a Distinguished Researcher “Beatriz Galindo” senior at the University of Santiago de Compostela / CISPAC. Her research explores the environmental impact of industry in the Anthropocene, the relationship between labour and the environment, environmental justice, degrowth and commoning. Her latest book Workers of the Earth: Labour, Ecology and Reproduction in the Age of Climate Change (Pluto Press, 2024) provides an ecofeminist perspective on today's global climate struggle and frames her keynote lecture in Helsinki.
Stream link:
https://tiedekulmamedia.helsinki.fi/fi/web/tiedekulma/player/webcast?eventId=309865801
Critical Raw Cartographies: Interminable Transition and the Thud of White Geology
Jeff Diamanti (University of Amsterdam) is Assistant Professor of Environmental Humanities. He figures as one of the central theorists of Energy Humanities globally. His most notable publications in the field include Climate and Capital in the Age of Petroleum (Bloomsbury Academic, 2021) and Materialism and the Critique of Energy (MCM' Publishing, 2018), co-edited with Brent Bellamy. His new research, Bloom Ecologies, follows the mining of phosphorous in the occupied Western Sahara to the aquatic currents forcing algal bloom and hypoxic milieu all over the planet.
Stream link:
Simon Michaux (Geological Survey of Finland GTK): Black Swans, White Swans and the Purple Transition
Toni Ruuska (UH, HELSUS): Reproductive labor as a foundation of degrowth communism
Eeva Houtbeckers (UEF, Untame): Transformative work: addressing root causes with feminist political ecology
Stream link:
https://video.helsinki.fi/unitube/live-stream.html?room=l69
Sakari Säynäjoki (UH, HELSUS): What do the energy humanists mean? Lessons for Eco-Marxism
Tere Vadén (BIOS): Learning and Unlearning from Fossil Modernity for Post-fossil Futures
Stream link:
https://video.helsinki.fi/unitube/live-stream.html?room=l73
Vesa Oittinen (UH, Aleksanteri Institute): Degrowth, the Concept of Wealth and the Imperial Way of Life
Michiru Nagatsu (UH, HELSUS): Thinking through the end of the world: Psychology of fear and hope revisited
Stream link: