22.05, 12:15-1:45pm GEO1, R.323 (hybrid)

Gerhard Rainer, Marc Daferner and Lukas Adolphi (Department of Geography, Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt)

More-than-human Geographies

We start our lecture by introducing you to the cornerstones of more-than-human geography, a relatively new field of study in a German speaking context. We then demonstrate the multifarious applications of more than human thinking in two case studies. First, we will take you for a walk to un-solidary forest places in and around the Black Forest National Park where human claims of controlling the ‘natural world’ can only be defended with enormous effort. There, the bark beetle resists human b/ordering efforts, destroying human forest ideals. Afterwards, we take you underground: In the urban spaces of Leipzig, we explore the materiality of sewage to better understand it as a substance that constantly moves between Life and Nonlife. With our case studies, we aim to demonstrate the benefits of conceptualizing world relations from a more-than-human perspective.