Love + Death with Andreas Weber

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