Screening: Donna Haraway: Story Telling for Earthly Survival

The scholar and feminist thinker Donna Haraway is perhaps best known as the author of two groundbreaking works: the essay “A Cyborg Manifesto” and the book “Primate Visions”. In both works, Haraway turns established “universal” categories – such as gender essentialism – upside down. She dissolves the boundaries between humans, animals, and machines, and questions humanity’s fascination with primates from a postcolonial perspective.

Story Telling for Earthly Survival is a cinematic portrait that presents Donna Haraway as a vibrant and charismatic thinker whose complex ideas about the environmental crisis and human–nature relations are deeply inspiring. Haraway advocates a holistic worldview and emphasizes the necessity of “making kin” – that is, creating responsible and interconnected relationships among humans and the more-than-human world. She critiques the term “Anthropocene” as too imprecise and instead introduces the concept of the “Plantationocene” to highlight the historical, political, and economic roots of the ecological crisis. The film conveys Haraway’s call to resist both pessimism and blind technological optimism, urging us instead to stay with the “trouble” of our times – actively and compassionately. In doing so, the film renders her complex theories tangible and accessible, inviting viewers to reflect on new forms of coexistence.

We are delighted to welcome Felix Grewe to this event. In his talk and the subsequent discussion, he will explore the fascinating, poetic, and powerful constructions and concepts of Donna Haraway. His contribution will go beyond a purely thematic analysis, opening a critical space for reflection in which the ethical, political, and epistemological dimensions of technology and the future can be discussed within their social context.

Grewe is a research associate at the University of Paderborn and is pursuing a PhD on Donna Haraway’s theory, with a particular focus on redefining the boundaries between gender, body, and technology. His research lies at the intersection of media studies, feminist theory, and technology studies.

Will be screened in its original English version with English subtitles (OmeU).