Cooperation in a Transdisciplinary Context. With Pyotr Kropotkin and Other Interlocutors
March 05–07, 2025
Pyotr Kropotkin (1842-1921) was a transformational figure across the “three cultures”
(Lepenies 1985). A famous natural scientist and one of the key contributors to the theory
of anarchism, he was a prolific writer, teacher and public speaker. Kropotkin’s legacy
stretches broadly. This has been recently acknowledged in a series of scholarly and artistic
commemorations of the centenary of his death, ranging from an international conference1
to an award-winning feature film2. Yet, many of his contributions remain poorly known,
understood, and appreciated, in particular in a cross-disciplinary context (Girón 2011). At
the same time, Kropotkin is still sometimes romanticized as a ‘visionary,’ a uniquely great
mind with a proportionally unique life. It seems, however, that it would be more beneficial
to examine his figure as a symptom of the shifting paradigms of knowledge in the late
19th century, a point of encounter between the history of science and the history of social
movements. The ambition of the workshop is to conduct a dialogue across disciplinary
boundaries in order to update what now seems to be a fragmented vision of Kropotkin's
work and its legacy. To do so, we will use the polymath’s figure as a starting and a focal
point of our interdisciplinary investigation, while inscribing his life and writings into
broader chronological and disciplinary contexts.
Participants
Ettore
Camerlenghi
Universität Zürich, Collegium Helveticum
Jennifer
Cole
Royal Holloway University of London
Florian
Eitel
Neues Museum Biel
Federico
Ferretti
Università di Bologna
Andrej
Grubacic
UC Berkeley, Univerity of Coimbra
Ruth
Kinna
Loughborough University
Michel
Lallement
Fellow
2020/2021
CNAM, Paris
Dominique
Miething
Freie Universität Berlin
Ole Martin
Sandberg
University of Iceland
Clara
Vlessing
Utrecht University