Books

Lebendigkeit sei! Für eine Politik des Lebens
(Towards Cultures of Aliveness. Politics and Poetics in a Postdualistic Age. An Anthropocene Manifesto. English edition forthcoming.)

This manifesto for the Anthropocene was written in collaboration with biologist and philosopher Andreas Weber and launched in May 2015 in Berlin. ISBN 978-3927369-95-5. To order a copy, contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Published by thinkOya in 2015.

Lebendigkeit sei! Für eine Politik des Lebens
(Towards Cultures of Aliveness. Politics and Poetics in a Postdualistic Age. An Anthropocene Manifesto. English edition forthcoming.)

Die rote Blume. Aesthetische Praxis in Zeiten des Wandels
(The Red Flower: Aesthetic Practices in Times of Change. English edition forthcoming.)

"Die rote Blume is a book of texts and conversations between Shelley Sacks and Hildegard Kurt dealing with the theory, evolution and practice of social sculpture, and its relationship to engaged art practices, activism, sustainability and the phenomenology of transformation." (S. Sacks)

This book documents a research project undertaken with artist Shelley Sacks and raises key questions concerning the path to a more sustainable world. What is needed to become free, active individuals and work collaboratively on the "Great Turning" (Joanna Macy) from an industrially-oriented society to a democratic, ecologically viable world? And: how do we learn? What understandings of ourselves as human beings do we need in order to achieve the necessary transformations?

Published by thinkOya in November 2013.

Stepping Lightly. On the Way Toward Another World
(Leicht auftreten. Unterwegs zu einer anderen Welt. Ein Tagebuch.)

In the form of a diary, this book explores space(s) for change, both personal and political, taking the year following the disaster of the failed Copenhagen climate conference as a time frame. Central questions are: what are the preconditions, obstacles and perspectives to be taken into account on the way towards a sustainable lifestyle? Where are the resources for transforming mindsets and behaviours that perhaps lie dormant, waiting to be recognised?

Published by the Verlag fuer Akademische Schriften (VAS) in October 2011.

Growing! On the Spiritual in Sustainability
(Wachsen! Über das Geistige in der Nachhaltigkeit)

“Spiritual” is meant here in the sense of an open code for a way of thinking and acting that extends beyond mere reason to create connectedness and commitment, and is derived as much from science as from art. This book does not document a self-contained, systematic theory, but rather a search for clues on a terrain that we can call the return of the spiritual - or perhaps, rather, a turn toward the spiritual on a new level: beyond its co-option by humanities academics , beyond the dualism of the modern age and beyond a romanticised idealism. It raises the questions: in what sense is art a form of knowledge? How does the anthropologically expanded concept of art relate to the necessary rethinking of our concept of science? How can we embrace the dimension of the spiritual in a concept of culture that perceives both humans and nature in constant evolution? Is it possible to rethink growth - beyond the dogma of economic growth - according to the actual needs of human beings, and in accordance with nature?

From the domains of cultural studies and art, this study joins the ranks of research taking place in all fields of knowledge, aiming to find ways out of the trance of “crystalline” thought (Joseph Beuys). The subtitle refers to Wassily Kandinsky´s 1912 book "On the Spiritual in Art" .

The book is comprised of seven essays, dealing with the following subjects: The Onset of Classical Modernism. Heading into Abstraction - Of Growing Sculptures and the Becoming of the World - Developing New Organs of Perception - Practising Love - Dying - Recovering - About Climate Change.

Re-published by Mayer Edition, Stuttgart in 2010.

Kultur-Kunst-Nachhaltigkeit. Die Bedeutung von Kultur für das Leitbild Nachhaltige Entwicklung
(Culture-Art-Sustainability. The significance of culture to sustainable development)
ed., Hildegard Kurt and Bernd Wagner: , Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft e.V., Reihe Dokumentation, Bd. 57, Essen: Klartext-Verlag, 2002.

Welche Landschaft wollen wir? Die Kulturlandschaft als Gestaltungsaufgabe
(What kind of landscape do we want? The cultural landscape as a design challenge)
ed., Hildegard Kurt and Erwin Wortelkamp: Verlag Kunstverein Hasselbach, 2002.

Die neue Muse. Impulse aus der Kunst zur Überwindung der Konsumkultur
(The new muse. Impulses from art to overcome consumer culture)
Humboldt Universität Berlin, Dissertationsschrift, Berlin: Zentrale Universitätsbibliothek, 1999.