MEETINGS: Hope in the Anthropocene? Lecture by Prof. Ewa Bińczyk

The lecture will provide participants with conceptual tools for reflecting on human–nature relations and will introduce the methodological framework of the exhibition Along the Silent Wave.

Hope in the Anthropocene

This lecture addresses the spectrum of the most urgent and pressing challenges of the Anthropocene. The age of humankind is also the age of planetary risk, destabilization, and irreversible environmental loss. We are losing species, ecosystems, and landscapes. Reports from Earth system scientists reveal how little time remains for an effective decarbonization of the global economy, and how rapidly we are now exceeding planetary boundaries. Within the humanities, we are called to question the traditional understanding of progress and humanity’s relation to nature. The knowledge of the Anthropocene often leads to despair. In this difficult context, is a constructive, non-naïve, scientifically grounded form of hope still possible? This is the question we will attempt to address together.

Biography

Prof. Ewa Bińczyk, PhD, specializes in contemporary philosophy of science and technology, science and technology studies, sociology of scientific knowledge, and scientific controversies. Her current research focuses on environmental rhetoric, ecological economics, degrowth, and the problem of Anthropocene paralysis. She is the author of several books, including Sociology of Knowledge in the Bible (Nomos, 2003), The Image That Enslaves Us (Universitas, 2007), Technoscience in the Risk Society (UMK, 2012), and The Age of Man: Rhetoric and the Paralysis of the Anthropocene (PWN, 2018; Russian translation 2022; Ukrainian translation 2023; shortlisted for the Długosz Award in 2019; listed among the “20 Books to Read in the 21st Century” by Polityka and Teatr Studio). Her most recent book, Socializing the Anthropocene: Eco-Energy and Ecologizing the Economy (UMK, 2023), was nominated for the Marcin Król Prize in 2025. She is a member of the Expert Council of Greenpeace Poland, the Climate Coalition Expert Council, and the Climate Education Foundation Council.

The lecture will be held in Polish.

Series of events accompanying Warsaw Gallery Weekend Meetings, co-financed by the PZU Foundation, the Ministry
of Culture and National Heritage and the City of Warsaw.