At campus for first time in 2,5 months; two meetings

Today I went to the University of Stavanger´s Ullandhaug campus for the first time in 2,5 months. By now up to 50% of employees are allowed to be present at any time, but far fewer are normally present, with extensive use of home office still.

I attended a faculty leadership meeting at campus. Later in the day, being back home at my home office, I attended an online inter-faculty meeting related to allocation of recruitment positions.

Half writing day

Today I have had half an article writing day, in part devoted to revision of my article "Anticipating the societal transformation required to solve the environmental crisis in the 21s century", with some 100 words written.

Total number of article days in 2020 is up to 40.

Appointments committee meeting; Cognitive lab

Today I have participated at two meetings - the appointments committe meeting at Faculty of social sciences, and a meeting in relation to establishment of a Cognitive lab at University of Stavanger.

Peer review

I have this Spring done a peer-review for Visual studies.

Half writing day

Today I have had half an article writing day, with some 300 words written on the revised version of my article "Anticipating the societal transformation required to solve the environmental crisis in the 21st century".

Two meetings

Today I have attended two meetings - a meeting with vice rector for education Astrid Eggen and others related to the revised quality system of University of Stavanger, and a meeting in the faculty leadership finalizing wording on the faculty´s strategic focus areas for the next few years.

Abstract for Steffens conference: "Steffens´ ideas about organic meteorology: From the Totalorganismus to planetary health?"

I have today composed the abstract below for my invited lecture at a conference about Henrik Steffens which is (hopefully) to be held at University of Copenhagen October 1-2nd, "“…just as alluring as instructive…” – Henrik Steffens’ Concept of Nature in Science, Humanities and Arts around 1800".

Steffens´ ideas about organic meteorology: From the Totalorganismus to planetary health?  

Morten Tønnessen Professor of philosophy, Department of social studies, University of Stavanger  

As Linda Richter (2019) has recently investigated, in a report to the Prussian state in 1811, Henrik Steffens made the argument that the atmosphere is a living being, and that adopting this perspective could lead to advances in medicine and our understanding of diseases in humans and animals. The context of the commissioned report was the idea – which was widely held at the time – that many diseases were caused or affected by the climate or weather. In another recent article based on her Ph.D., Richter (2020) distinguishes between Semiotics, Physics, and Organics of the weather as three distinct forms of meteorological knowledge in the period 1750–1850 in German-speaking countries, and presents Steffens as a prominent representative of the Organics perspective.  

I will approach Richter´s two articles and Steffens 1811 report from four different angles. First, I will look into in what ways Steffens´ proposal for an organic perspective on meteorology highlights key aspects of his nature view more broadly. This will include reflecting on possible interpretations of his notion of a “grand organism” (Totalorganismus) in the context of ecology. Second, I will discuss how Steffens´ perspective on organic meteorology fares in comparison with the Gaia theory of James Lovelock. Third, I will discuss whether Steffens´ idea that human and animal health and the weather mirror each other has any resemblance with how we think about human ecology and anthropogenic climate change today. Lastly, I will discuss how Steffens´ perspective connects with contemporary (w)holistic notions such as `One health´, `One Welfare´, and `Planetary health´.