Lecture
“Climate and Civilizations, a Global History”
The Earth is warming up, biodiversity is disintegrating, humanity is mutating. Who's responsible for these upheavals? A gifted Monkey, born 3 million years ago, who became Master of the World. Child of the climate, his body is adapted to an arid environment, that of the African savannah: biped and omnivorous, big head and small jaw. Killer monkey, he learned, with tools and fire, to dominate matter and the rest of the living. Empathetic monkey, he pushed cooperation to unprecedented levels of efficiency, making him invincible.
Today, the monkey has subjected matter and the living to its whims. He manipulates the atom, creates cows without the help of bulls, tampers with the genetics of plants, and unconsciously alters his own by spreading chemicals in his environment at any cost. We are the Monkey who tomorrow will perhaps use artificial intelligence to think and a synthesized body to flirt with immortality, and who today may be preparing the conditions for its extinction.
Freelance journalist, Laurent Testot is the author of Cataclysmes. Une histoire environnementale de l’humanité (Payot, 2017) and of La Nouvelle Histoire du Monde (Sciences Humaines Éditions, 2019). He recently coordinated (with Laurent Aillet) Collapsus. Changer ou disparaître ? Le vrai bilan sur notre planète (Albin Michel, 2020).
Every year, Les Brigittines team up with the Master in Performing Arts at the Université Libre de Bruxelles to give a number of lectures in which the current scene is being evaluated, borrowing from anthropology, sociology and philosophy to sharpen the spectator's analytical view. Click here for more info !