Mark Schunemann (Talk)
he/him
Fri May 30 | de Brakke Grond
Psychedelics are often hailed as ways of achieving virtue, beauty, or a higher truth. Mark Schunemann’s talk will look at cultures that—unlike the current wellness and retreat mishmash—define themselves by particular styles of drug relationship: as pharmacological nanotechnological tools, as hedonic agents of connection, or as teacher-beings in their own right.
Acknowledging the difficulties inherent in bringing Amazonian or animistic experiences back into the Western metropolis, where people often find themselves relegating their experiences of an enchanted ecology (back) into the cognitive realm of the fairytale, this talk reckons with the ways in which such experiences are understood.
About the speaker
Mark Schunemann has been studying the sacramental drug-culture relationship for seven years, having presented his research in Tallinn, Harvard, Breaking Convention, and Prague. His interests span practical and feminist theology, philosophy, critical theory, medical anthropology, and literature. He looks at the relationship between measurable externalities, immeasurable interiorities, ritual, and value generation.
He is especially interested in the ways in which ritual, rave, and medical cultures potentiate the psychedelic state, and in the philosophy of cognitive liberty. Having studied Theology at Oxford, Schunemann is also a published poet and is currently pursuing a PhD in comparative drug culture at Exeter University.
