On Thursday, July 2, 2026, from 15:30 to 17:00, Sophie van Balen will defend her dissertation entitled: To the forgetters of air. An ecological politics for breathable futures.
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. M. Huijer (EUR)
Location: Senate Hall, Erasmus Building, Woudestein Campus
Brief summary of the thesis:
The PhD project, which received NWO-funding within the research program PhD in the Humanities (2021), brings together contemporary continental climate philosophy with feminist theory and politics. Picking up on the 'forgetting of air' that both Luce Irigaray and Peter Sloterdijk theorise, Sophie van Balen approaches climate disruption by thinking through breath. If we figure out a way to think about our (human and non-human) existence as situated in air, what might that tell us about how intimately exposed we are to climate change? Via phenomenological and ontological work, and by doing case studies on the nitrogen crisis and the biodiversity crisis, Sophie van Balen develops a politics of breath.
More information: www.eur.nl
Copyright (C) 2026 Marli Huijer.