Rosine Kelz

Rosine Kelz is a research associate in the project "Politicizing the Future" at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam, Germany. Previously she was an Andrew W. Mellow Fellow in the Bio-Humanities at the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities at the University of Illinois.

Her current research focuses on ethical and ontological questions associated with the use of new biotechnologies. She also works on the role of temporality in political and moral thought.

Rosine holds a D.Phil in Political Theory from the University of Oxford.

Seminar One Keynote: The (im-)possibility of acknowledging difference?  Approaches to encountering the Other in modern western philosophy  

 For modern western philosophy universality is an issue. Enlightenment values like rationality, objectivity and human rights inherently demand universal validity as part of their emancipatory promise. The claim of universality, however, has also been challenged from within the tradition of European thought, which has highlighted the finitude and situatedness of human knowledge. Moreover, since at least the early 20th century political movements have pointed out problematic aspects of a European thought tradition that has been closely affiliated with colonial and imperialist projects. In my contribution I will examine critiques of universality and notions of the Other, recognition, and acknowledgement in contemporary western thought.  I ask whether contemporary ideas of otherness and difference within western philosophy are successful in enabling encounters between people of different cultural backgrounds or genders, and help to enable conversations between people who ascribe to diverging political ideas, moral convictions or worldviews. Such encounters are crucial for addressing global challenges such as climate change in ways that are attentive to issues of social and environmental justice  

Photo (c) Lotte Ostermann
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