Love + Death with Andreas Weber

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10/12/21 • 113 min

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Dr. Andreas Weber (he/him) is a Berlin-based book and magazine writer and independent scholar. He has degrees in Marine Biology and Cultural Studies, having collaborated with theoretical biologist Francisco Varela in Paris.

Andreas' work focuses on a reevaluation of our understanding of the living. He proposes to understand organisms as subjects, and hence the biosphere as a meaning-creating and poetic reality. Accordingly, Andreas holds that an economy inspired by nature should not be designed as a mechanistic optimization machine, but rather as an ecosystem that transforms mutual sharing of matter and energy in a deepened meaning.

Andreas has contributed extensively to developing the concept of enlivenment in recent years, notably through his essay Enlivenment: Towards a Fundamental Shift in the Concepts of Nature, Culture and Politics (Berlin 2013; published in expanded and rewritten form as Enlivenment: Toward a Poetics for the Anthropocene, MIT Press, 2019). He has also put forth his ideas in several books and is contributing to major German magazines and journals, such as GEO, National Geographic, Die Zeit and Greenpeace Magazine. Weber teaches at Leuphana University and at the University of Fine Arts, Berlin. He is also part of the staff of und.Institute for Art, Culture and Sustainability, Berlin, which is devoted to link the fields of art and culture with the field of sustainability, and to develop exemplary models of productive exchange; and was named the 2016 Jonathan Rowe Commons Fellow, Mesa Refuge, Point Reyes, CA, USA.

In this episode, Andreas and Brandi talk about the intersections of Love + Death, including:

How one of his books helped Brandi fall back in love with the world a handful of years ago.
The first time they both remember death becoming real in our lives, not just conceptually, but somatically.
How our world is in a century-long struggle against death.
The physical experience of aliveness.
What biology has to say about purpose.
How you can’t just be concerned with your own aliveness at the expense of others and your community.
What fermentation and composting have to do with community and healthy ecosystems.
How Andreas is trying to make himself more edible.
How he’s leaning further into more animistic thinking.
The challenge of institutionalizing these ideas at scale. Or, how we might “organize” aliveness.
How Dr. Weber practices love in his life practically.

Listeners can find Dr. Andreas Weber at his website, https://biologyofwonder.org/ and on Twitter @biopoetics.

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Music: The in-house musicians at Slip.stream
Audio Engineering: The team at Upfire Digital

In this episode, Andreas and Brandi talk about the intersections of Love + Death, including:

How one of his books helped Brandi fall back in love with the world a handful of years ago.
The first time they both remember death becoming real in our lives, not just conceptually, but somatically.
How our world is in a century-long struggle against death.
The physical experience of aliveness.
What biology has to say about purpose.
How you can’t just be concerned with your own aliveness at the expense of others and your community.
What fermentation and composting have to do with community and healthy ecosystems.
How Andreas is trying to make himself more edible.
How he’s leaning further into more animistic thinking.
The challenge of institutionalizing these ideas at scale. Or, how we might “organize” aliveness.
How Dr. Weber practices love in his life practically.

Listeners can find Dr. Andreas Weber at his website, https://biologyofwonder.org/ and on Twitter @biopoetics.

Music: The in-house musicians at Slip.stream
Audio Engineering: The team at Upfire Digital

Previous Episode

Inefficiency + Joy with David Epstein

David Epstein (he/him) is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Range and The Sports Gene. He was previously an investigative reporter at ProPublica, where his work spanned from drug cartels to poor practices in scientific research. Prior to that, he was a senior writer at Sports Illustrated. He has master's degrees in environmental science and journalism, and has lived aboard a ship in the Pacific Ocean, and in a tent in the Arctic. His TED Talks have been viewed more than 10 million times, and he’s formerly the host of Slate’s popular “How To!” podcast.

Like a love letter to generalists, backed by mounds of scientific data, his second book, Range, makes the case that delayed selection is actually better for development. When you “sample” many different things, taking your time to find what really suits you, you might spend years looking “lazy” or “directionless” from the outside, but there’s a good chance you’ll find greater satisfaction when you finally find “your thing.” In fact, in combining all of your varied experiences, you might also fill a unique niche in the world—one no one else has ever considered.

And while the world might see this process as very “inefficient”—a hated behavior in an industrialized world—David and Brandi talk about how inefficiency is actually quite connected to the concept of “match fit,” which is really just another way to say “joy.”

Plus:

Vincent van Gogh, who didn’t come into painting until very late in his life, after years of trying many, many different things and often seeming a “failure.”
The first time David realized that normalizing life as a generalist might be incredibly cathartic, and why he thinks “Range” continues to elicit such an emotional response.
David’s own path as a generalist and how his “average” skills in one domain, when applied to something seemingly unrelated, suddenly became very unique.
How switching so many jobs in your life can be seen as “inefficient,” but often leads you to a better “match fit.”
Why we’ve traditionally cared so much about efficiency, but what society actually calls for now.
How things like school debt can keep us in jobs that aren’t a good fit for us, and what the “sunk-cost fallacy” has to do with it.
How humans are actually more suited to late-blooming than any other organism.
How David practices inefficiency to keep himself joyful and curious.
The people currently inspiring David when it comes to “connecting the seemingly un-connectable.”

Listeners can find David Epstein at his website https://davidepstein.com/ (please do sign up for his newsletter there—you’ll get instant goodies to dive into) and on Twitter @DavidEpstein.

Music: The in-house musicians at Slip.stream
Audio Engineering: The team at Upfire Digital

Next Episode

Queer Memoir + Rhizomes with Serena Chopra

Serena Chopra (she/her) is a teacher, writer, dancer, filmmaker, and a visual and performance artist. She has a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from the University of Denver and is a MacDowell Fellow, a Kundiman Fellow, and a Fulbright Scholar. She has two books, This Human (Coconut Books 2013) and Ic (Horse Less Press 2017), as well as two films, Dogana//Chapti (Official Selection at Frameline43, Oregon Documentary Film Festival, and Seattle Queer Film Festival), and Mother Ghosting (2018). She was a featured artist in Harper's Bazaar (India) as well as in the Denver Westword’s “100 Colorado Creatives.” She has recent publications in Sink, Foglifter, Matters of Feminist Practice, and the anthology Alone Together: Love, Grief and Comfort in the Time of COVID-19 (Central Avenue Publishing). In October 2020, Serena co-directed No Place to Go, an artist-made queer haunted house with Kate Speer and Frankie Toan. Serena is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Seattle University.

In this episode, Serena and Brandi talk about the intersections of Queer Memoir + Rhizomes, including:

The way Serena isn’t just holding contradictions now but sees contradictions as “the situation of life.”
How queer narratives don’t have to be “legible” or easily consumable.
In what ways we’ve repressed our visionary intuitions in order to fit inside of institutions.
The difference between an “arborescent” version of intelligence, and a “rhizomatic” version of intelligence.
Tarot reading as a blueprint of our subconscious and engaging in reading and writing as a form of “bibliomancy.”
The refusal to be contained by the capitalist and colonialist economies that create binaries and margins that oppress and harm us.
The way you’re “supposed to be an academic” filters into one’s psyche.
Growing up in ballet and the struggle to let go, which led Serena to poetry and modern dance.
The best advice Serena has ever had, which came from a dance teacher.
How much extra work it takes BIPOC, queer, female-identified writers and artists to be artists.

Listeners can find Serena’s work on her website, serenachopra.com, and on Instagram @serena_rose_chopra.

Music: The in-house musicians at Slip.stream
Audio Engineering: The team at Upfire Digital