Inaugural Lecture: Professor Mathias Thaler

Stuck in the Anthropocene interregnum?

Imagination and action in a climate-changed world

In May 2024, we gathered to celebrate the professorship of Mathias Thaler, Personal Chair of Political Theory. Professor John Devaney, Head of School, delivered the introduction and the closing remarks.

Please note: this lecture is presented as audio only (like a podcast!)

In this lecture, I introduce my overall research agenda as well as discuss initial ideas for an emerging project. More specifically, my objective is to explore how we should reflect on the current political conjuncture, or what I shall call the “Anthropocene interregnum”. The answer to that question is related to the complex relationship between imagination and action in our climate-changed world. I want to argue that the contemporary shortage of effective avenues for collective action can, to some extent, be traced back to a debilitating “weakness in our imaginations” (Fredric Jameson). One (but certainly not the only) way of addressing the current limitations of political action therefore involves probing the deeper causes of, and potential remedies to, the steady decline in imaginative capabilities that is characteristic of our times. This lecture hopes to take a first step in that direction.