by Gwennael Gafric (MCF Univ. Lyon 3)

This paper proposes to explore The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin as a scientific and cosmic uchronia in which instability becomes a critical tool for questioning the foundations of civilizations. In this science-fiction trilogy, the author shifts political, moral, and civilizational debates into alternative spaces where survival is never guaranteed and order can no longer be taken for granted. The work is rooted in a Chinese context shaped by the history of science, the memory of the Cultural Revolution, and tensions between scientific rationality, political authority, and the collective imagination. Liu Cixin turns physics into a political language: imagining other spaces becomes a way to interrogate the constants of human civilization, its models of governance, and its illusions of stability.

Tuesday 17th March 2026, from 2pm until 4pm

Room S.H3244
Building H3
ULB - Campus Solbosch

Free entrance