Green Hour: Chemical Utopias – Elements of an Integrated Theory of Sustainability (Dr. Alexander Klose)

„Better things for better living through chemistry“ (DuPont, 1936). „Chemistry brings bread, prosperity, beauty“ (Walter Ulbricht, 1958). „We help chemistry to change the world“ (Royal Society of Chemistry, 2025). The chemical-industrial complext and its products, as much as it is disliked by a majority of people in late modern societies, has always carried and often formulated a utopian dimension. No other industry has changed modern lifeworlds as profoundly. What if we took those utopian claims seriously and imagined a truly sustainable future chemistry? What requirements would it have to meet and what role could such a chemistry play as a an agent of social transformation?

Location: WZU, Room 101 (Building U), Universitätsstr. 1a (innocube), 86159 Augsburg