Lilian Kroth | Associate Postgraduate

Environment, climate, energy: Societies and their ecological challenges
Centre Marc Bloch, Friedrichstraße 191, D-10117 Berlin
Email: lvlk2  ( at )  cam.ac.uk Tel: +49(0) 30 / 20 93 70700

Home Institution : University of Cambridge | Position : Since september 2023 Post-Doc University of Freiburg (CH) 2019-2023 Doctoral Researcher, University of Cambridge, 2015-2018 Master in Philosophy, University of Vienna, 2017 Fine Arts Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, 2011-2015, B | Disciplines : Philosophy |

Biography

Lilian Kroth is currently working on her PhD project on Michel Serres’s philosophy of limits at the University of Cambridge. Since 2021, she has been associated to the research groups “Critical thinking in the plural” and “Energy and climate” at the Centre Marc Bloch. She is one of the organizers of the CRASSH research network “Remote Sensing. Ice, Instruments, Imagination” in Cambridge. Prior to that, she has studied Philosophy at the University of Vienna (BA, MA), where she also worked as a research assistant and tutor; and Fine Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She contributed to various group exhibitions and theatre projects. Her research is interested in philosophy of nature and law, the history and philosophy of science, critical theory and aesthetics.

Researchtopic

My research is interested in concepts of ‘limits’ at the intersections of philosophy of nature and science and critical theory, and I am currently exploring these interconnections of different disciplinary realms in the formation of structures of the 'limit’ by looking at the work of French philosopher of science Michel Serres.

Title of thesis
Michel Serres’s Philosophy of Limits. Passages between the Philosophy of Science and Critical Theory
Summary of thesis

The interest of my thesis on Michel Serres’s philosophy of limits is to trace limit formations as operative functions of thought, which perform interdisciplinary ‘translations’ between philosophy of science, aesthetics, and critical theory. In order to pursue this, I examine a number of Serres’s works revolving around the history and philosophy of science, writings on art and literature, and ‘critical’ pieces. These comprise, amongst others, his early Hermès-series, The Birth of Physics, The Natural Contract, as well as his series on Foundations. I focus on Serres’s engagement with limit-formations (that is, relatedly also the formation of boundaries, borders, frontiers, and margins) in respect to three main fields. I examine his understanding of limits in respect to the history and philosophy of geometry (1), in respect to his take on topology (2), and in relation with entropy as a concept used both in thermodynamics and information theory (3).
I argue that Serres’s understanding of limits provides a prolific output both on the level of content and form, and challenges common understandings of being ‘given’ and ‘made’. On the one hand, the thesis shines light on Serres’s historical account of the genesis of different limits, and how they travel between knowledge formations. On the other hand, it reconstructs his own employment of limits and how it sits in his philosophy of science, his take on aesthetic practices, and his idea of contracts. The aim is to approach Serres’s work in its potential to explain how limits both disconnect and connect. These analyses emerge from the background of Serres, at first sight, not being prone to taking limits as a primary concern. His reservations towards limits as ontological givens, as politically non-negotiable, or straightforwardly socially constructed turn out to be highly productive. These contexts leads his work to a philosophy of limits that takes what he calls the ‘North-West-Passage’ between the sciences and humanities with an outlook that remains both philosophical and historical. Within French-speaking philosophy and beyond, Serres therefore turns out to be a crucial and astonishingly original thinker of limits in an irreducible plural, and connected to that, as I argue, a critical thinker.

Institution of thesis
University of Cambridge
Supervisor
Prof. Martin Crowley
Projects

I am one of the organizers of the CRASSH Research Network “Remote Sensing. Ice, Instruments, Imagination” in Cambridge, which hosts a series of meetings and events around remote sensing in the polar regions. In this context, we work with scientists, humanities scholars, and artists to develop shared methods for concepts such as ground truthing, and thinking and sensing our way across distance.

Michel Serres’s Philosophy of Limits. Passages between the Philosophy of Science and Critical Theory

I argue that Serres’s understanding of limits provides a prolific output both on the level of content and form, and challenges common understandings of being ‘given’ and ‘made’. On the one hand, the thesis shines light on Serres’s historical account of the genesis of different limits, and how they travel between knowledge formations. On the other hand, it reconstructs his own employment of limits and how it sits in his philosophy of science, his take on aesthetic practices, and his idea of contracts. The aim is to approach Serres’s work in its potential to explain how limits both disconnect and connect. These analyses emerge from the background of Serres, at first sight, not being prone to taking limits as a primary concern. His reservations towards limits as ontological givens, as politically non-negotiable, or straightforwardly socially constructed turn out to be highly productive. These contexts leads his work to a philosophy of limits that takes what he calls the ‘North-West-Passage’ between the sciences and humanities with an outlook that remains both philosophical and historical. Within French-speaking philosophy and beyond, Serres therefore turns out to be a crucial and astonishingly original thinker of limits in an irreducible plural, and connected to that, as I argue, a critical thinker.

Publications

Kroth, Lilian: “Entropy and Entropic Differences in the Work of Michel Serres”, Theory Culture & Society, pre-print 1-15, 2023. https://doi-org.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/10.1177/02632764231187593

Kroth, Lilian: “Entropy’s Critical Translations: Following Serres’s Path through the North-West-Passage”, Technophany, A Journal for Philosophy and Technology, volume n°2, 1-19, 2023. https://doi.org/10.54195/technophany.14313

Kroth, Lilian: “Infrastructure, Translation, and Metaphor: A Reflection on Infrastructure’s Epistemic Framework and Metaphorical Displacements with Michel Serres and Bruno Latour”, in Broken Relations: Infrastructure, Aesthetics, and Critique, (ed. Beck, Martin; von Bismarck, Beatrice; Buchmann, Sabeth; Lafer, Ilse): Spector Books, 2022.

Kroth, Lilian: “The Topology of Difference: Deleuze’s Nietzsche in his Politics of Folded Spaces and Subjects”, in Nietzsche and the Politics of Difference (ed. Rehberg, Andrea; Woodward, Ashley):De Gruyter, 2022.

Kroth, Lilian: “Critique emerging from Marshes and Mushrooms. Parasitism and Desterilisation in Serres and Tsing”, in: Parassiti. Annuario Kaiak n. 7 (ed. Cuomo, Vincenzo; Pelgreffi, Igor): Kaiak Edizioni, 2022.

Kroth, Lilian: “Wie viel Geheimnis muss sein? Geheimnis, Nichtwissen und ihre gesellschaftlichen Funktionen bei Georg Simmel”, in Die (Deutungs-) Macht des Öffentlichen. Beiträge zur dritten under.docs-Fachtagung zu Kommunikation(ed. Metzler, Barbara; Himmelsbach, Julia; Bertel, Diotima; Schmid, Daniela; Grohs, Nora; Nigitsch, Philipp): Danzig & Unfried, 2021.

Kroth, Lilian: “Reale Außen? Konfrontationen zwischen French Theory und postkolonialer Kritik im Spiegel einer dividuellen Teilhabe am Weltwerden” (Polylog Nr. 42 2019, book review)

Kroth, Lilian: “Art under the Lens of Political Theory: Oliver Marchart and the Aesthetics of Explicitly Political Art” (http://www.thirdtext.org/kroth-marchart?fbclid=IwAR2J8zZkrPJpB5H_afFXjjf2CNTBxVFi6JRA-s-iMgmPn5jKvxM5lJwUV30, book review)

Kroth, Lilian: “Drawing From and With the Oceanic: Tania Kovats at Parafin, London” (in: Third Text Online. Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Art and Culture, 25 January 2022) http://www.thirdtext.org/kroth-kovats-review

Eder, Natalie; Kroth, Lilian; Eleven, Martin: “Den gegenwärtigen Moment nicht verpassen” (“Not to Miss the Present Moment”) – Interview with Jean-Luc Nancy, in: Engell/ Siegert (Hrsg.) Zeitschrift für Medien-und Kulturforschung. SCHWERPUNKT Inkarnieren (Heft 8/1 2017), Hamburg: Meiner Verlag.