Ongoing Colloquia

FANE in collaboration with Prof. Uwe Voigt and the support of the educational center Vierzehnheiligen in Bad Staffelstein, an institution attached to a Franciscan monastery and basilica on the slopes of the Upper Main Valley in Oberfranken, held this public colloquium on the future of these traditional Cistecrian farmlands. The meetings brought community leaders together with international specialists in environmental philosophy and ecologists to think about the future of this beautiful but rapidly changing landscape.

Prof Voigt has summarised the proceedings as follows.

“The landscapes we live in are the heritage of many past generations. In our disruptive times, we are facing the question if and how we can preserve and pass on that heritage. The director of the Bildungshaus Vierzehnheiligen, Prof. Dr. Elmar Koziel, greeted our group. In the morning, Prof. Dr. Ryosuke Ohashi (Kyoto) spoke about wind as a concept of the cultured landscape in Japan, and Prof. Dr Tanehisa Otabe (Tokyo) dealt with landscape as inter-being. In the afternoon, Prof. Dr. Barry Stephenson (St. John’s) raised the topic of monastic landscapes and their development across the ages. Subsequently, Prof. Dr. Christian Illies (Bamberg) raised the question “How free are we to change our relation to nature?”

In the evening, we braved a rainstorm to get to the nearby village of Klosterlangheim, former site of a large Cistercian monastery which has shaped the landscape of the region to a great extent. At a local inn, a roundtable was held with local people in order to discuss their concerns about the landscape they live in and love. Prof. Dr. Thomas Gunzelmann (Bamberg), an expert in the historical cultured landscapes of Franconia, showed how recreation, reflection, and representations of this environment have varied in history. After supper and an excursion to the local museum, the promise and threat of tourism to the area was discussed.

On Sunday, June 2, we examined what the environmental crisis means for the landscape in which we live. Two papers dedicated themselves to this question: Dr. Dina Barbian, founder and head of the Institute of Sustainability eco 2050 Nuremberg, elucidated the concept of planetary boundaries and their significance for landscape. Dipl. Biologist Manfred Rauh, director of the regional trust for landscape care, spoke about “Our landscape as a case for intensive care?”. In the evening, we hiked to the near-by Staffelberg, a mountain towering over the Upper Main Valley. Over lunch in a nearby restaurant, PD Dr. Joachim Rathmann told us about the geography of the surroundings.

On Monday we wrapped up the event with the theme, “Landscape of the Future – Future of the Landscape?”

Climate change, species extinction, urban growth, unstable rural economies, and many more factors make it questionable that this landscape will look the same in the future as it does today. Prof. Dr. Sean McGrath (St. John’s) talked about what nature in the Anthropocene is and still can be. Prof. Dr. Uwe Voigt pleaded (Augsburg) for an ecological culture of remembrance, and PD Dr. Joachim Rathmann (Augsburg) made a connection between care for landscape and an environmental virtue ethics. Prof. Dr. Kyla Bruff introduced the public to FANE with the question: “Which future do we want for our landscapes?” At the end of the event, Andreas Motschmann (Bolivia) shared his love for the Franconian landscape and remembered his brother Josef, a regionally well-known historian and poet who approached the area in literature.