08.11.2022
The Soul of Metamorphosis: Plant, Animal, Human
Oxana Timofeeva
Taking the philosophy of antiquity as a starting point, Oxana Timofeeva’s lecture rereads the soul as metamorphoses and transitions, as monstrous intermediate forms of plant-humanity and human-bestiality.
The lecture, "The Soul of Metamorphosis: Plant, Animal, Human," looks at the idea of the soul as developed in philosophy, where since antiquity a division has been made into three kinds of souls - the nutritive or vegetable, the sentient or animal, and the rational or human. Rather than retelling a hierarchical structure of this traditional division, we imagine the soul as metamorphoses and transitions between these forms, as monstrous intermediate forms of plant-humanity and human-bestiality, and the reflection of one form in the other, including in religious consciousness, where, according to Hegel, spirit first reveals itself in art, as plants and animals.
Oxana Timofeeva is a professor at the "Stasis" Center for Practical Philosophy at the European University of St. Petersburg, a senior researcher at Tyumen State University, a member of the artists' collective "Chto Delat?" ("What to do? "), deputy editor of the journal "Stasis" and author of the books Solar Politics (Polity 2022), History of Animals (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), How to Love a Homeland (Kayfa ta, 2020), This is not That (2022, in Russian), Introduction to the Erotic Philosophy of Georges Bataille (New Literary Observer, 2009, in Russian) and other writings.
