Brad Tabas

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor (Assistant) at National Institute of Advanced Technologies of Brittany

This is an extended meditation on the practice of being ecological. I rethink deconstruction with a particular emphasis on differentiating the globality of the Earth from its planetarity. I argue for, and attempt to practice, a weird approach to ecological thinking emergent from an encounter between a realist spacing-oriented reading of Derridean d...

This chapter discusses and analyzes the phenomenon of pathological bifurcation among French engineering students. Pathological bifurcation occurs when sustainable development succeeds in inspiring student activism, but that passion expresses itself destructively. The chapter answers two questions. First, we interrogate whether pathological bifurcat...

Cet essai présente l’astrocritique, une théorie critique et une posture herméneutique visant à penser la politique culturelle de la nouvelle ère spatiale. Il se concentre particulièrement sur le thème de la musique céleste dans l’astroculture américaine, proposant des lectures de Thoreau, Lovecraft, Crase et Smith. On comprend mal la culture améric...

The essay explores the emergence of a new paradigm in biopolitical power which is proper to the Anthropocene. Characteristic of this new form of biopower is that it neither exercises direct control over life nor over territory, but rather derives power from knowledge relevant to sustaining the ‘life’ of satellites in abiotic extraterrestrial domini...

Cet article présente une critique des revendications éthiques qui sous-tendent ce qu’il appelle le nouveau futurisme. L’auteur suggère (sans établir ni nier la possibilité de tels cas) que tout argument légitime en faveur de l’expansion de l’habitat humain au-delà de la planète devrait rester humain, c’est-à-dire qu’il devrait montrer la valeur éth...

This paper presents a critique of the ethical claims underwriting what it calls the New Futurism. The New Futurists are a group of thinkers who are associated with Silicon Valley Dataism, and who, armed with Bayesian arguments, argue that it is morally imperative for humankind to colonize the solar system. This paper attacks not the general idea of...

It may seem obvious that the interests of social justice should always align with environmental justice on a limited planet Earth. Unfortunately, this is far from the case in practice, even in the Anthropocene. This essay provides a new cognitive mapping of how ideologically charged discourse splits the interests of people and planet. It offers a p...

Earthlings can now see screened objects on the Martian surface. This essay develops a practice it calls extraordinary ordinary philosophy to think the consequences of speaking about the Martian world viewed using everyday terrestrial words. Exposing how our planet haunts our ordinary language and entangles itself in the claims of what we normally c...

What is the pedagogical place of silence in the Anthropocene classroom? Should we as teachers—particularly as teachers involved in the education of aesthetic sensibilities—understand our classrooms as sites in which awareness of our Anthropocene predicament is spread, sites in which a general sense of the urgency of our times is disseminated? And i...

Lab spaces can teach STEM ethics by highlighting and creating opportunities to practice the four key dimensions of the AIRR framework of Responsible Innovation (RI): anticipation, inclusion, responsiveness, and reflexivity. In this paper, we introduce ‘Futures Labs’∼ as a pedagogical approach to train students in RI skills and encourage them to bec...

In this paper, we offer insight into how the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are being integrated into engineering programs. We investigate the question : “what opportunities and > Cahiers COSTECH 2 / 10 > #Numéro 5 barriers should we take into consideration in order to better integrate the SDGs into engineering programs ?” We undertook two...

Despite the emerging discussions about the growing role of engineers in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), there is a lack of agreement on which competences should be prioritised to prepare engineering students to resolve future sustainability challenges. This study examined and compared the views of key stakeholders of engineering...

As the world's focus turns to the future and not the present, the engineering profession must respond to the ever increasing need to bring about a sustainable future. The objective of this paper is to support the reform of engineering education by acknowledging and building upon the current awareness and understanding of sustainable development hel...

In this paper, we offer insight into how the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are being integrated into engineering programs. We investigate the question: "what opportunities and barriers should we take into consideration in order to better integrate the SDGs into engineering programmes?". We undertook two exploratory focus group studies wit...

When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I was seated in cafés in Paris, intermittently employed as an adjunct professor, and engaged in a struggle to find my professional place and philosophical voice. I lived in this way for almost six years. At present I am a tenured professor at a prestigious French engineering school, seat...

This paper explores the question how to approach thinking about curriculum construction for European engineering schools in the age of sustainable development. We present a theoretical argument that curriculum thinkers need to broaden their focus from the “restricted competences” paradigm (RCP) in curriculum thinking to consider how to make curricu...

This paper will provide an insight into how French engineering students and employers perceive the competencies needed to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). It draws on the findings of two exploratory focus group studies carried out in the context of the A-STEP 2030 European Project. Our results indicate significant differences in the...

This text examines the effects of climate change on cultural ideas regarding the colonization of space. More specifically, this paper explores the ways which the looming danger of climate catastrophe has fueled the growth of post-planetary culture: a culture that dreams of a human destiny beyond the Earth. It takes as its object both science fictio...

Most work on the relationship between science and science fiction focuses on how science fiction can advance science by speculatively elaborating scientific theories. This text, to the contrary, argues that we should understand some science fiction texts as contributing to the making of science as a social practice rather differently: namely by see...

This text proposes a new paradigm for thinking about competency-based education derived from an extended reflection of sustainable development as a wicked problem. It suggests that current approaches to thinking about competences are ill-adapted to dealing with the challenge presented by sustainable development, and based on this conclusion it argu...

This chapter discusses the role of the engineer in today's society, a role to be rethought in terms of the change in the historical‐social paradigm. Working to produce progress can be seen as a moral duty, an obligation for the individual toward society or the human species as a whole. The idea of progress and the social role that it confers to the...

This article deals with the generally underestimated importance of horror fiction for eco-critical thinking about place. It looks at three major horror writers, Poe, Lovecraft, and VanderMeer, exploring the ways that each plays with and deepens our understanding of what it means to be in a place. Contrary to popular opinion, which would claim that...

Excerpt In recent years, much attention has been given to the notion of political theology, while much less attention has been given to political anthropology. Yet the two terms beg to be thought together. What follows is an account of the political stakes involved in Hans Blumenberg's anthropology, a reading focused on themes that Blumenberg himse...

The author writes on the complexities in Coetzee's writing with regards to “freedom” and “madness.” Within this context, he also references the dualities in reading Coetzee's work.