"Moralisateur-ice, moi ?" - leg 4 of our Moralizing-Tour in the Quartier Libre de Lentillières, Dijon

Tomorrow we will have our 4th leg of our Moralizing-Tour in the wonderful ZAD / Quartier Libre de Lentillières in Dijon. Find the invitation below <3 

  Moralisateur-ice, moi ?

discussion participative
mercredi 4 juin 2025
16h-18h à la Chouchou

As-tu déjà eu l'impression d'être moralisateur ou moralisatrice, que tu le veuilles ou non ?

Lorsque tu étais devenu-e un exemple de comportement écologique ou que tu faisais une grimace d'irritation face à un commentaire raciste ou sexiste ? La morale et la moralisation ont longtemps été perçues comme l'apanage des conservateurs et des prudes privilégiés aux lèvres pincées. Elle a été utilisée contre nous, les queers et les progressistes. Mais ces derniers temps, la situation semble avoir changé. Les conservateurs paniquent de plus en plus face à ce qu'ils perçoivent comme des moralisateurs et des grondeurs "woke". En outre, les mouvements fascistes tels que le trumpisme peuvent être compris - en partie - comme étant motivés par une rébellion contre cette moralisation perçue. Comment en sommes-nous arrivés là ? Et...

Comment pouvons-nous comprendre une moralité queer ? En pensant à des films comme "Pride", dans lesquels la construction d'une morale est un élément essentiel de la construction de coalitions queer entre les mineurs de charbon à la campagne et les queers en ville, nous voulons réfléchir au rôle de la moralisation dans notre société. Nous essayons de comprendre la moralisation comme un processus de construction de communautés dans les temps catastrophiques à venir, communautés qui ont plus de pouvoir que les conservateurs qui s'accrochent à leur ancienne moralité. Dans cet atelier, Alexis Shotwell et Kilian Jörg souhaitent discuter avec vous de leurs expériences personnelles en matière de moralisation dans et autour des espaces militantes et queers - qu'elles soient bonnes ou mauvaises.

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Alexis Shotwell enseigne et écrit à Ottawa, sur des terres algonquines non cédées, où elle fait partie du collectif anarchiste Punch Up (www.punchupcollective.org). Ses recherches portent sur la complexité, la complicité et la transformation collective. Elle est co-chercheuse pour le AIDS Activist History Project (www.aidsactivisthistory.ca) et auteure de Knowing Otherwise : Race, Gender, and Implicit Understanding and Against Purity : Living Ethically in Compromised Times.

Kilian Jörg travaille à la fois sur le plan artistique et philosophique sur le thème de la catastrophe écologique et sur la manière dont ses forces transformatrices peuvent être imaginées et déployées au mieux. Ses publications précédentes portaient sur la culture des clubs, le contrecoup politique d'un point de vue écologique, la culture de la distance en période de catastrophe et une religion spéculative des déchets. Ses recherches actuelles portent sur la voiture en tant que métaphore de nos liens toxiques avec les modes de vie modernes (Autodestruction, à paraître en septembre 2025 chez Wildproject), sur les effets socio-psychologiques de la vie avec l'écocide et sur les stratégies activistes radicales de récupération des terres comme la ZAD de NDDL en France (Durchlöchert den Status Quo !, 2025). Kilian travaille à la fois en théorie et en pratique artistique et militante sur la façon de créer des rituels qui nous permettent de cultiver des sentiments plus complexes en temps d'effondrement. Kilian est affilié à plusieurs collectifs, dont le Futurama.Lab, Stoffwechsel - Ecologies of Collaboration et le SFB Affective Societies à la FU Berlin.

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La Chouchou
Quartier Libre des Lentillères
42 rue Amiral Pierre, Dijon

An Ecology of Moralizing - Leg 3 of Europe-Tour: Munich

As the third leg of our "Moralizing"-Tour in Europe, Alexis Shotwell and me will give a workshop at the HFPH in Munich next Monday. Find all infos here.

“Moralizing” is now mostly regarded as a pejorative. How did this start? The term is often – especially from the left – seen as the purview of the pursed-lips privileged prude who disregards the material grounds and social complexities of capitalist life. To be moralizing is to be naive, preposterous and even apolitical. Thus, while many want to be ethical humans, few want to appear to be moralizing under any circumstances. In this presentation, we examine how we have gotten to this point and ask if this prevalent dualism between ethics (as good) and morals (as bad) is not itself an oversimplification neoliberal theory thrives on. We reformulate moralizing as a situated, concrete form of custom- and community-building in a shared planetary situation of ongoing catastrophe. We argue that this kind of moralizing might be essential for the long breath that transformative politics require in today’s dire situation.

This workshop is organized by Prof. Dr. Barbara Schellhammer and Lena Schützle (Intercultural Social Transformation).

We invite students, colleagues, and pro philosophia e.V. members to join the discussion.

Please register via zgf@hfph.de . The Workshop will be held in English.

An Ecology of Moralizing @ HU Berlin, 21.5.2025

The next leg of our European moralizing tour is taking place tomorrow at HU Berlin - please join us for a frutiful dicussion!  

An Ecology of Moralizing 

Impulsvortrag u. Workshop mit Kilian Jörg & Alexis Shotwell

21. Mai 2025, 12-14 Uhr, Institut für Kulturwissenschaft, Medientheater in der Georgenstraße 47, HU-Berlin

 Why is „moralizing“ mostly regarded as a pejorative conversation ender today? How did this start? The term is often – especially from the left – seen as the purview of the pursed-lips privileged prude that are disregarding the material grounds and social complexities of capitalist life. To be moralizing is to be naive, preposterous and even apolitical. Thus, while most want to be ethical humans, few want to appear to be moralizing under any circumstances.  

In this presentation, we examine how we have gotten to this point and if moralizing is happening whether we want it or not. We ask if a rejection of moralizing as judgemental condemnation is perhaps in itself an oversimplification neoliberal philosophy thrives on. By reviewing radical sources of anarchist moralizing, we want to reformulate it as a situated, concrete form of custom- and community-building in a shared planetary situation of ongoing catastrophe. We argue that this kind of moralizing might be essential for the long breath that transformative politics require in today’s dire situation.

 

An Ecology of Moralizing @ OFF Brussels, 14.5.2025

After our North-American tour last fall, Alexis Shotwell and me will be touring Central Europe for the next months - again giving a few lectures and workshops on our current book project An Ecology of Moralizing. Our first leg will be in the nice queer space One Field Fallow in Brussels on the 14th of May, Wednesday from 19:30 onwards. 

Find our abstract below and we are looking forward to see you there!

Have you ever felt you are moralizing whether you wanted it or not? When you stood out as an example in ecological behavior or just made an irritated face at a racist or sexist comment? Morality and moralizing have for the longest time been perceived as the purview of the conservatives and the pursed-lips privileged prude. It was used against us queer and progressives. But in recent times this seems to have changed. Conservatives are more and more panicking about what they perceive as "woke" moralizing and scolding. Furthermore, fascist movements such as Trumpism can be understood - in part - as motivated by a rebellion against this perceived moralizing. How did we get there? Is it actually bad to talk about what would be a good way to live together?  

We propose a queer project of building morale through better understanding and practicing moralizing. Thinking with histories of AIDS activism and movies like "Pride" (in which building morale is an essential part of coalitions between coal miners in the countryside and queers in the city), we want to think about the role of moralizing in our society. Moralizing as a process of building communities in the catastrophic times to come which have more agency than conservatives, who cling to their old morality. In this workshop Alexis Shotwell and Kilian Jörg want to discuss with you personal experiences with moralizing - whether good or bad.

How rebellion against moralizing has become a surprising rallying point for the political right @ The Conversation

Alexis Shotwell and me wrote a little comment about moralizing, triggered by JD Vance's statement at the Munich Security Conference: “If American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg’s scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk.” This statement seemed to express so much we are working on currently in our book project "An Ecology of Moralizing" so we decided to take a break from the actual work of the book and write this article. The style and tone of the article is unusual to me, but it was an interesting exercise to intervene in current debates like that.

--> Read the full text here  

"An Ecology of Moralizing" Leg 3 at the CCS 35th Anniversary Conference, Universtiy of California, Santa Cruz, 24.10

As the last leg of our Ecology of Moralizing speaking tour, Alexis and me will present our project "An Ecology of Moralizing" at the 35th Anniversary Conference of the famous Center for Cultural Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. I am honestly a bit dizzy in anticipation, given the other speakers at the conference (Donna Haraway, Anna Tsing, TJ Demos, just to name a few) and I am very excited and honored to be there!

--> find the full program here! <--

"An Ecology of Moralizing" - Leg 2 of our Speaking Tour in Salt Lake City @ University of Utah, 18th of Oct

As part of our research and lecturing trip by Amtrak to the Westcoast we will stop next at Salt Lake City and discuss our book project at the Department of Philosophy at the Univeristy of Utah. Find all the details and a link below.

Alexis Shotwell & Kilian Jorg

October 18, 2024
In-Person
2PM - 4PM, CTIHB 459

An Ecology of Moralizing

Abstract:

Why is "moralizing“ mostly regarded as a pejorative conversation ender today? How did this start? The term is often – especially from the left – seen as the purview of the pursed-lips privileged prude that are disregarding the material grounds and social complexities of capitalist life. To be moralizing is to be naive, preposterous and even apolitical. Thus, while most want to be ethical humans, few want to appear to be moralizing under any circumstances. In this presentation, we examine how we have gotten to this point and if moralizing is happening whether we want it or not. We ask if a rejection of moralizing as judgemental condemnation is perhaps in itself anoversimplification neoliberal philosophy thrives on. By reviewing radical sources of anarchist moralizing, we want to reformulate it as a situated, concrete form of custom- and community-building in a shared planetary situation of ongoing catastrophe. We argue that this kind of moralizing might be essential for the long breath that transformative politics require in today’s dire situation.

--> Link to the Event <--

“Living Ecological Politics”: Thinking with ZADisme @ Climate Commons, Ottawa

Together with Alexis Shotwell, I will have a more in-depth discussion of ZADism and what we can learn from it in eco-politics on Tuesday, the 1st of October as part of the Climate Commons-Research group in Ottawa.

“Living Ecological Politics”: Thinking with ZADisme

With Austrian activist & writer Kilian Jörg and Carleton prof. Alexis Shotwell

Tuesday October 1, 2024: 4 – 5:00 p.m.

Dunton Tower, Room 2017

“ZAD,” or “zone à defender,” has entered the European lexicon as a general term for direct collective action against large-scale development projects that would damage the environment. First coming into prominence in the collective opposition to airport construction in Notre-Dame-des-Landes, France, the approach and tactic has spread widely.

In this conversation, visiting Austrian activist and writer Kilian Jörg will discuss the practice and theory of the ZAD. Then they’ll be joined by Alexis Shotwell for a conversation about how zadiste praxis offers some interesting provocations for those of us interested in direct action for the environment in Canadian contexts.

In their shared writing, Kilian and Alexis are considering the concrete world-building exemplified in the ZAD as a model for how to be with land differently.  If we think of our values as situated, place-based, as growing out of the earth and the places we live, what forms of collective care and practice would we need to create? We are interested in how zadism practices allow us to become differentiated, non-universal, specific, particular, while at the same time collective and inherently political. Can proliferating autonomous relations to territory, in turn, contribute to pluralizing and proliferating multiple ways to be alive together?

Sponsored by the Carleton Climate Commons & the Punch Up Collective

Take in the Film Screening of a film about Zadiste direct action followed by Discussion with Kilian

“An Island and One Night” (Une Ile et Une Nuit)

Oct. 1, 6:30-9:00 p.m.

St. Paul’s University, Social Innovation Workshop, 195 Clegg St.

--> Link <--

"An Ecology of Moralizing" - Talk at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada - 26/09/24

The main reason I am in North-America is - thanks to the kind funding of Carleton University and the Futurama.Lab - to research on Alexis Shotwell's and current research project "An Ecology of Moralizing". We are really excited - and sometimes nervous - about it and will be sharing our thoughts on this at various places in North-America in the next weeks. The first public one is on the 26th of September at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.  Find more info below and if you are around, we are very curious to hear your critical remarks and thoughts - both of us wouldn't have believed a year ago that we would once work on a positive concept of moralizing...but we really think we discovered a blind-spot in our thinking that is revealing and productive to current ethico-political problems of discourse.

--> link to the lecture

"An Ecology of Morals" - Salon Futur #2 with Alexis Shotwell - 19.3 18:30

The March-edition of the now monthly "Salon Futur" by the Futurama.Lab will host a special treat: Alexis Shotwell and me will be presenting our emerging collaborative research entitled "An Ecology of Morals". The presentation will take place on the 19th of March, 18:30-20:30 at the Bildraum Studio of Ankerbrotfabrik, Absberggasse 27, 1100 Vienna. Find more information below and I am really looking forward to see you there!

"SALON FUTUR"

Das FUTURAMA LAB 
lädt herzlichst in den "SALON FUTUR" zum Thema
"An Ecology of Morals"


GAST: Alexis Shotwell 
HOST: Kilian Jörg & Sabrina Rosina
LOCATION: Bildraum Studio, Ankerbrotfabrik, Absberggasse 27, 1100 Wien 
DATE: Tuesday, 19th of March, 18:30-20:30

This edition of "SALON FUTUR" invites you to explore the tricky moral conundrum that environmental acting and thinking is encompassed with. Why, in a time were everybody feels the need to change, do we have such a hard time to ethically demand that change? Do we fear to be „moralizing“ more than to be continuing the ecocidal status quo?

Our invited guest will be the Canadian philosopher and sociologist Alexis Shotwell who will present their current collaborative book-project with Salon Futur-host Kilian Jörg. „An Ecology of Morals“ tries to stir clear of predominant fears of individualizing, woke-ness and cancel culture by regarding morals as a ecological practice. We seek to undo the little reflected dualism between “ethics” and “morals” by understanding morality as a oikos-based practice that should much rather be regarded as a collective environmental politics than an individualized obligation.

Since this collaborative research is at an early stage, Alexis and Kilian will be particularly curious to hear your stories on the matter. What are your experiences with addressing issues that everybody seems to agree on, but still nobody acts on? Do you sometimes avoid questioning your friends and colleagues for what you regard to be ecocidal behavior in spite of your desire to do so? We are particularly interested in your stories and would love to discuss them within the theoretical framework we will present in this Salon Futur. See you there, your FUTURAMA LAB-team

LINKS:
http://futurama-lab.org/salon.html
https://www.bildrecht.at/bildraum/bildraum-studio/rainer-prohaska-esistenza-integrale/
https://maps.app.goo.gl/rAC17m8co1giGYMq6

ABOUT: In the format "SALON FUTUR" experts are invited every month to enter into an open and transdisciplinary dialogue with FUTURAMA LAB participants and guests on a key topic. The "SALON FUTUR" is a format of the "FUTURAMA DAYS".

The FUTURAMA LAB and the "FUTURAMA DAYS 2024" event series are kindly supported by

Bundesministerium für Kunst, Kultur, öffentlichen Dienst und Sport . BMKOES
Kulturabteilung der Stadt Wien . MA 7
YPSOMED AG 
BILDRAUM STUDIO, BILDRECHT GmbH