Multispecies Storytelling II

The edge of extinction is not just a metaphor; system collapse is not a thriller.
Ask any refugee of any species. (Haraway, Staying with the Trouble)

This is an invitation to listen to other(s') stories, to share stories, to care.

How could a shared and carefull telling of stories look like, feel like, sound like? What methods and tools do we need to un/learn to be able to make sense of the complex realities of more-than-human life forms and our interrelations with them? How can storytelling become part of a decolonial ecology?
In Multispecies Storytelling Part II we will focus on stories of extinction – told and shared as fables, myths, multispecies ethnographies, songs, films, installations, and probably a parade. We search for cultural strategies that raise awareness of extinction as not only the death of species but of cultures, pieces of the universe, of sensations that fade away (Despret). We want to meet each other every week to create shared practices and rituals, ways of working and communicating, of un/learning, visiting all kinds of strange, beautiful, troubled, and beastly places. Let us compost.

Guest speaker: Gerard Ortín Castellví

Excursions:

• Senckenberg Museum Frankfurt; date: n.n.
• Sensory Ethnographic Fieldwork in the Eifel; date: n.n.

Recommended literature:

• Chao, Sophie, Karin Bolender, and Eben Kirksey, eds. The Promise of Multispecies Justice. Durham: Duke University Press, 2022.
• Heise, Ursula K. Imagining Extinction: The Cultural Meanings of Endangered Species. Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press, 2016.
• Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Minneapolis, Minn: Milkweed Editions, 2013.
• Le Guin, Ursula K. The Word for World Is Forest. London: Gollancz, 2022.
• Rose, Deborah Bird, Thom Van Dooren, and Matthew Chrulew, eds. Extinction Studies: Stories of Time, Death, and Generations. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017.
• Van Dooren, Thom. World in a Shell: Snail Stories for a Time of Extinctions. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2023.