Into the Wild, vraiment ? - Semaine de la Pop Philosophie

Marion Laval-Jeantet, artist-researcher; Salomé Ambert, geographer; Jeremie Brugidou, artist-researcher; talks followed by a conversation with philosophers Jeanne Etelain and Julie Beauté

Salomé Ambert

The call of the wild. Fantasizing about rewilding

Once upon a time, European landscapes were populated by bison, wolves, beavers and even elephants. What if today it were time to consider their return?

Since the 1990s, rewilding – or the return to the wild – has encouraged the “return” of species or processes considered “natural,” whether they return spontaneously or are given a little help. The return of wolves, images of wasteland reclaiming land, the reintroduction of ibex or vultures: these stories have something fascinating about them.

Indeed, behind rewilding lies an entire imaginary: that of a wild nature that would be there somewhere, ready to reclaim its rights as soon as it is given a little space. A teeming, powerful nature in its fullest expression, since it has been freed – at least in part – from human control. Dreaming of the return of the wild means taking part in a collective fantasy.

But what does this fantasy tell us about our own way of imagining nature? To find out, we will follow the trail of several speculative novels that depict rewilding through the return of wolves, bears and lynxes to Scotland. What do they tell us about the futures imagined through rewilding? Ultimately, when we fantasize about a wilder world, what are we saying about our relationship with the world?

Jeremie Brugidou

Phylogeny of imaginaries

In a distant future or a parallel dimension, humanity survives as best it can in the solipsism it has created: no form of animal otherness remains; except for a few fantasies, ghosts or holograms, enigmatic, almost legendary presences that one day break the status quo of the orbital stations where the human species has taken refuge. Animality bursts in, sometimes violently, but above all with all the power of its appearance, becoming visible against the void that surrounds it. Where do these non-human forms come from, what do they tell us, what is their source? Left on Earth, other human souls pursue an obstacle-strewn quest: to relocate the places where life is re-emerging. The two investigations meet at the most indistinct point: the interpretation of dreams.

Based on these fictional ideas, we will be able to explore the links between the evolution of living things and the imagination of life, in other words, the phylogeny of imaginaries. This postulate of the generalized contamination of inner worlds makes it possible to envision new fields of study, such as biomythology or the ethology of creative creatures.