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Lilian Kroth

lilian.kroth@unifr.ch
+4915733171523
ORCID 0000-0002-8202-1168

Department of Philosophy
University of Fribourg
Avenue de l’Europe 20
CH- 1700 Fribourg

Language Skills
German (mother tongue),
English (C2),
French (B2),
Spanish (B1)

Current positions

2025

Post-Doctoral Research Position, SNF SPARK Project “Seeing Like a Satellite”, University of Fribourg, Switzerland

2024-2027

Post-Doctoral Research Position, SNF SINERGIA Project “Aerial Spatial Revolution”, University of Fribourg, Switzerland

Other positions held

Oct 2023- Oct 2024

Associated Researcher at University of Groningen (Research Institute for the Study of Culture)

2023-2024

Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship at Department of Philosophy, University of Fribourg, Switzerland

Education

2019-2023

PhD, University of Cambridge
Dissertation: “Michel Serres’s Philosophy of Limits. Passages between the Philosophy of Science and Critical Theory” (Supervisor: Prof. Martin Crowley, Advisor: Prof. Joanna Page)

2015-2018

Master of Arts (MA) Philosophy, Institute of Philosophy and Educational Sciences, University of Vienna, Austria (Supervisors: Dr. Arno Böhler, Prof. Kurt Appel) Final Grade: 1,0

2018-2022

Study of Fine Arts, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria

2011-2015

Bachelor of Arts (BA) Philosophy, Institute of Philosophy and Educational Sciences Vienna, University of Vienna, Austria, Final Grade: 1,3

2008-2011

Early Study Program, Institute of Philosophy, University Augsburg, Germany

Teaching and research experience

Mar 2025

Online Class at Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts: “Scientific Instruments and the Genesis of Objectivity”

Feb-May 2025

Master/ Bachelor Seminar University of Fribourg, Department of Philosophy: “Being Changed. Experience and Transformation” (Co-Teaching)

June 2024

Masterclass at Utrecht Hermes Summer School Narrating Degrowth and Sustainability: Cultural Imaginaries and the 4th Industrial Revolution (organized by University of Groningen)

Feb-May 2024

Bachelor Seminar University of Fribourg, Department of Philosophy: “The Natural Contract. Ecology in Aesthetic and Political Context” (“Der Naturvertrag. Ökologie in ästhetischer und politischer Hinsicht”)

Oct 2021-Mar 2022

Course Lecturing and Teaching: “Critical Theory”, University of Cambridge MMLL Part IA-II, at the following colleges: Jesus, Corpus Christi, Trinity Hall, Downing, Gonville & Caius (introduction to Foucault, Spivak, de Beauvoir, Woolf, Mbembe, de Castro, Deleuze, Boltanski/Chiapello, Tsing)

Mar-Jul 2018

Course Tutorial: “Philosophies of the Body from an Intercultural Perspective” (Doz. Mag. Dr. Arno Böhler), Department of Philosophy, University of Vienna (introduction to Judith Butler, Spinoza, Aurobindo Ghose et al)

May-Jun 2025

Artistic Research at interdisciplinary art-research residency program ARTICA, Svalbard

Jan-Mar 2018

Artistic Research at arts-based-research center BASE, Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu, South India, (Presentation: Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)

Sept 2016- Sept 2017

Research Assistance for Prof. Dr. Andreas Gelhard, Department of Philosophy, University of Vienna; Seminar Preparation “Heteronomy, Alienation, Reification – Basic concepts of philosophical social criticism” (2017), “Psychotechnique as a Philosophical Problem” (2016)

Publications

Peer-reviewed Articles & Book Chapters

2025

“Edges of the Ice: Aerial Views and Frontier Imaginaries”, co-authored with Amelia Urry, in The Aerial Turn. On the Conquest of the Air and its Impact on the City, the Territory and the Planet (ed. Matteo Vegetti), p. 133-151. https://doi.org/10.48686/8kym-7z38

2025

“The Ocean in the Court: Navigating Metaphors of Law and Sea”, Angelaki 30, no. 1 (2025): 66–77. https://doi.org/10.1080/0969725X.2025.2454827

2025

“Remote Sensing and Feminist Critique: Reappropriations of Sensing Across Distance”, Environment and Planning F 4, no. 1 (2025): 3–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/26349825241283838

2024

“Redefining Limits: Entropy and a New Natural Contract”, Angelaki, 29 (4), p. 35-45. https://doi.org/10.1080/0969725X.2024.2382589

2024

“‘Le Propre’: New Naturalist Understandings of Limits, Law, and Property in the work of Michel Serres”, Environmental Ethics 46 (1), p. 71-89. https://doi.org/10.5840/enviroethics202422371

2024

“Entropy and Entropic Differences in the Work of Michel Serres”, Theory Culture & Society, 41 (2), p. 21-35. https://doi.org/10.1177/02632764231187593

2023

“Entropy’s Critical Translations. Following Serres’s Path through the North-West-Passage”, Technophany: A Journal for Philosophy and Technology, 2 (1), p. 1-19. Special Issue, “Entropies”. https://doi.org/10.54195/technophany.14313

2022

“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, p. 45-65.

2022

“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, p. 163-182. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110688436-010

2022

“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, p. 93-115.

2021

“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.

Books

2025

Alignments. Drawing as a Way of Thinking – a Response to the Work of Michel Serres: KrautIn Verlag.

Interviews

2017

Eder, Natalie, Eleven, Martin, and Kroth, Lilian: “‘Den gegenwärtigen Moment nicht verpassen’ (‘Not to Miss the Present Moment’): Interview with Jean-Luc Nancy’, in: Zeitschrift für Medien-und Kulturforschung, 8/1: SCHWERPUNKT Inkarnieren, (ed. Engell, Lorenz; Siegert, Bernhard), 80-85. https://doi.org/10.28937/ZMK-8-1_6

Book Reviews

2020

Kroth, Lilian: “Art under the Lens of Political Theory: Oliver Marchart and the Aesthetics of Explicitly Political Art” (in: Third Text Online. Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Art and Culture, 3 July 2022) http://www.thirdtext.org/kroth-marchart

2019

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

Art Criticism / Catalogue texts

2024

“Ice narrated from red: the temporality of planetary data archives”, in: Sunless Seas of Ice, (ed. Kinčinaitytė, Geistė Marija): PETRO OFSETAS.

2022

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

Editorial Work

2014

Co-Editor of the magazine Engagée: Philosophisch-politische Einmischungen http://www.engagee.org/index.html

Forthcoming

2025

“Cryo-Criticality” in Michel Serres and the Environmental Humanities, Bloomsbury Academic (forthcoming 2025)

Under Review

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Michel Serres: Limits and Passages (Monograph): Bloomsbury Academic

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“What Does it Mean to Translate across Knowledges? Filter, Information, and Transformation”, French Studies, Special Issue, “Serres and Latour in Conversation” (ed. Bensaude-Vincent, Bernadette; Korthals Altes, Henriette)

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“Draw Me a Limit, and I’ll Tell You a Structure. On the Process of Distinguishing Limit Formations”, in Drawing Across University Borders – Challenges and Opportunities (ed. Bismarck, Mário; Almeida, Paulo Luís)

In Preparation

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“Orbital Lines. Drawing as a Research Framework to Investigate Satellite Vision” (journal paper)

Special Issue

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Co-edited with Amelia Urry: “Remote Sensing as Method and Material”, Environment and Planning F – accepted proposal

GRANTS AND AWARDS

2025

Grant for Workshop Organization “Sensing Ice. Artistic, Technological, and Theoretical Encounters with the Cryosphere” SNFS (Swiss National Foundation of Science for “Scientific Exchange”), main applicant: Lilian Kroth (7 500 CHF)

2025

Grant for Workshop Organization “Alignments. Drawing as a Way of Thinking between Philosophy and Art” (Centenary Research Fund); main applicant: Lilian Kroth (5 000 CHF)

2025

SPARK project “Seeing like a Satellite. Drawing as a Research Method to Investigate Icy Environments”, SNFS (Swiss National Foundation of Science), main applicant: Lilian Kroth (91 610 CHF)

2024

Grants for Conference Organization “Media of Art/ Art of Media”, SNFS (Swiss National Foundation of Science for “Scientific Exchange”), SAGW (Schweizer Akademie für Geisteswissenschaften), Fonds d’action facultaire, and Centenary Research Fund; main organizers: Emmanuel Alloa, Alessandro de Cesaris, Lilian Kroth (total: 27 750 CHF)

2023

British Society for the History of Science, Conference and Workshop Grant (£500)

2022–2023

CRASSH (Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities) Research Network: “Remote Sensing. Ice, Instruments, Imagination”, main organizers: Lilian Kroth and Amelia Urry (University of Cambridge); co-organizers Charlotte Connelly (Scott Polar Museum, Cambridge) and Dehlia Hannah (Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts); (£1 500)

2021–2022

AHRC-funded reading group and workshop “Translating Entropy”, main organizers: Lilian Kroth and David Harrison (University of Cambridge, Arts and Humanities Research Council); (£500)

2022

Odette de Mourgues Award (£250)

2019–2023

Cambridge Trust (Cambridge European Scholarship) (£9 200)

2019–2023

Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC DTP scholarship (PhD study fees)

2020–2023

Cusanuswerk Germany (PhD stipend, 65 250 €)

2016–2018

PRO SCIENTIA (stipend of the interdisciplinary Austrian student grant)

CONFERENCES AND PRESENTATIONS

Dec 2025

ETH Zurich Kolloquium

Nov 2025

Santa Barbara (conferência)

Jun 2025

“Making sense of ice from space: drawing as a research method to investigate remote sensing of icy environments” conference Back to Frozen Earth. Permafrost in Social Theory and Beyond, Sciences Po, Paris

May 2025

“Alignments. Drawing as a Way of Thinking in the Work of Michel Serres”, 16th International Conference on Artistic Research: Resonance, University of Porto

Apr 2025

Workshop Organization: “Alignments. Drawing as a Way of Thinking in the Work of Michel Serres”, Talk at FriArt, Fribourg

Jan 2025

“Introduction to a ‘New Existentialism’”, with Nikolaj Schultz, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna

Dec 2024

“Remote Sensing and Feminist Critique”, Colloquium of the Faculty of Geosciences, University of Fribourg

Oct 2024

“Limits as Lines, Lines as Boundaries. Drawing From and With the Work of Michel Serres”, Conference Drawing Across x Along x Between University Borders, University of Porto

Sept 2024

Congress Organization: Media of Arts/ Arts of Media (Medien der Künste/ Künste der Medien), Congress of the German Society of Aesthetics, University of Fribourg

May 2024

“What does it mean to translate?”, conference on Michel Serres and Bruno Latour in conversation, Maison française, Oxford

May 2024

“Remote Sensing, Imaginations, and Vertical Translation”, at Werkstattsitzung Centre Marc Bloch, Pôle 5, Berlin

Apr 2024

“Ice criticality”, International Conference of Three Societies on Literature and Science BSLS, CoSciLit and SLSAeu, University of Birmingham

Apr 2024

“Remote Sensing and Geopower. Approaches in Contemporary Art”, Conference “Aesthetics of Geopower”, University of Amsterdam

Feb 2024

“Limits and Alignments – Michel Serres as a Critical Thinker” (Invited Speaker at Staffordshire University, online)

Dec 2023

Conference Organization: Aesthetics & Critique VII. Beyond Reality? Virtuality and Experience (Collaboration between Kunsthalle FriArt and the University of Fribourg; organizers: Alessandro de Cesaris, Federico Fantelli, Lilian Kroth, Nicolas Brulhart)

Nov 2023

“Rethinking Limits – Reading French Philosopher of Science Michel Serres”, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge (2nd of November, Anthropocene Reading Group and Seminar)

Apr 2023

Workshop Organization: “Remote sensing: exploring practices between the arts, sciences and humanities”, at CRASSH (Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities), organizers: Lilian Kroth and Amelia Urry (University of Cambridge)

Nov 2022

“Relations between Inter-action and Intra-action. Serres and Feminist Philosophy of Science” at Rethinking Relations: Michel Serres and the Environmental Humanities (November 9-12 2022, TU Dresden)

Jul 2022

“Serres’ strukturelle Vertragskritiken” (13th July 2022, University of Bonn, presentation in Colloquium organized by Prof. Dr. Andreas Gelhard)

Jun 2022

“Serres’s Natural-Legal Limits and Alignments: Approaching the Contractual Dimension of Entropic Limits” at Serres and the Social (June 21-22 2022, Queens’ College, Cambridge)

Jun 2022

“Michel Serres and Critique” (June 8th 2022, Presentation in Research Group Critical Thinking in the Plural. Conceptual Approaches in Research in the Social Sciences, Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin)

May 2022

“Infrastructure, Translation and Metaphor. A Reflection on Infrastructure’s Epistemic Framework and Metaphorical Displacements with Michel Serres and Bruno Latour” at Broken Relations: Infrastructure, Aesthetics, and Critique (conference, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna)

Oct 2021

“Thinking ‘Limits’ and its ‘Translations’ with Michel Serres – A Critical Perspective on Limitarisms in Political Ecology” at Society for Social Studies of Science/4S conference (Toronto)

Jun 2021

“Michel Serres and ‘le propre’” at Why Private Property? (Conference, Université Bordeaux Montaigne/ University of Oxford)

Mar/May 2021

“Drawing Theory” at Tactics and Practice Research Seminar (Cambridge)

Jan 2021

Response to Marta Segarra’s “Poststructuralism and Posthumanities” at Was wird der Poststrukturalismus gewesen sein? (conference, University of Vienna)

Nov 2020

“The Ocean in the Court: Relating the Limits of Natural and Social Law” at SEP-FEP (Conference of the Society for European Philosophy) (online)

Oct 2020

“What Makes Art Political? Raging Against the De-and Over-Politicisation of Artistic Practices” at French Graduate Conference: ‘Rage Against the Machine’ (Cambridge, online)

Jul 2019

“Deleuze and the Other(s): Deleuze’s Logic of Implication and Explication” at Deleuze Studies Conference (London, Royal Holloway)

May 2019

“Other(s) and Their Representation(s) – Revisiting Deleuze’s Multiplicity” at Association for Philosophy and Literature Conference Truth, Fiction, Illusion (Alpen-Adria Universität, Klagenfurt)

Mar 2019

“Memory and future as folding: A Topological Approach between Deleuze and Foucault” at Memories of the Future International Conference (Institute of Modern Languages Research School of Advanced Study, University of London)

Sept 2018

“Topology of Difference with Nietzsche and Deleuze” at Nietzsche and the Politics of Difference, Friedrich Nietzsche Society Conference (Newcastle University)

Jun 2018

“Krise der Authentizität: Zwischen Kapitalismuskritik und Ökonomisierung. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Boltanski/Chiapello und Bernard Stiegler” at Kritiken der Krise (Conference, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Germany)