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How do you define an object if not by its composition or usage? Contemporary philosopher Graham Harman presented his Philosophy of Things in an open lecture at Litteraturhuset in Oslo.

Most people in Northwestern Russia and on the Kola Peninsula live in apartment blocks constructed during the time of Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev; many of these apartments are in a serious state of decay.

Written by Scientific Director Vigdis Broch-Due.

Ballast, the material used to stabilize ships, is the object of study for archaeologist and CAS fellow Professor Mats Burström. He describes ballast in terms of being a ‘gigantic relocation of material’.

Blok P in Nuuk was built by the Danes in an effort to urbanise Greenland in the 1960s: one per cent of Greenland’s population have since called Blok P their home. It was demolished in 2012.

The plastic bag, which we estimate can last for up to five hundred years, shows that we are not in control of the afterlife of things, states CAS participant and postdoctoral fellow, Dr Þóra Pétursdóttir. She argues that plastic, shoes, fishing nets and all kinds of materials found along the world’s shores must be understood as part of our ‘environment’.

How are apps and social media creating new ways to combat air pollution? During his CAS lunch-time seminar, Associate Professor Hongtao Li sheds light on how new technology is influencing the air pollution debate in China.

Every semester, CAS fellows are challenged to present their research to the other project groups at lunch-time seminars. For the pure mathematicians, having to explain their work to the uninitiated might be considered something of a challenge.

It’s the Olympic Games in Beijing and the heavy smog that usually fills the air of the capital and the lungs of its inhabitants has somehow lifted. Dedicated researchers are the people to thank for this reprieve.

After a comprehensive election process, the Centre for Advanced Study (CAS Oslo) at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has the pleasure of announcing the three selected research projects for the 2018/19 academic year.