Grand Challenges lecture series ILAS 2016-2017 | Page 10

GRAND CHALLENGES
PATHOLOGICAL LIVES: ON
THE COSMOPOLITICS OF
LOSING SELF-ASSURANCE
PROFESSOR STEVE HINCHLIFFE
1 MARCH 2017 | 1PM-2PM KEELE HALL | THE SALVIN ROOM
We live in a bio-insecure world where the smallest of
organisms threatens our modern lives. In this talk Professor
Hinchcliffe refers to two possible responses. Either we view
these emergent microbes and circulating resistant genes
as an outside threat to health and good life or alternatively,
we see as them as a ‘passing fright that scares self-
assurance’ (Stengers 2005). In this cosmopolitical approach
pathological lives can create situations which help to make
us think and in this way, they are not so much the problem,
but part of the solution.
Steve Hinchliffe FAcSS is Professor of Human Geography
at the College of Life and Environmental Sciences at the
University of Exeter. Steve Hinchliffe is an elected Fellow
of the Academy of Social Sciences. He has a wide range
of research interests with publications on issues ranging
from risk and food, to biosecurity, human-nonhuman
relations and nature conservation.
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we view these emergent
microbes and circulating
resistant genes as an
outside threat to health
and good life