Welcome to the course Terminal Threats, Existential Risks, Theories and Examples.
You are entering the first course of the major “Beyond the Anthropocene” (AntrhopoSSENTS master degree) and of the major "Avoided collapses, lessons to be learned" (ACC Master degree).
We (Baptsite Salmon, mostly) and Myself, begin with the analysis of existential risk not as an end in itself, nor as an attempt to predict or prevent the end of humanity, but as a way of learning to frame existential and terminal situations.
These are moments in which the conditions of a world, and of inhabiting it, are radically questioned. These can be framed à cosmological episodes, i.e. episodes where causal and moral statements seem to no longer apply.
In such situation, implicit and explicit, epistemic, ethical, and material ressources must be mobilised, and often reconfigured - implicit ressources are often made visible in this process. Such moments can thus be understood as moments when both causal explanations and moral statements become visible, contested, and consequential.
Throughout this course, you will explore theories and examples of terminal threats in order to examine how we decide what is at stake, what counts as a threat, whose values are engaged, and what kinds of futures become thinkable. This will provide the starting point for the courses that follow in these majors