syllabus

 
Week 1: Idioms and Actors of Animacy
After a greeting and getting to know each other, we look at key terms and idioms of animacy in an age of planetary unmaking, such as the Anthropocene, Multispecies, Nonhuman, Other-Than-Human or More-Than-Human. We approach key theories of making kin, such as Timothy Morton's "strange strangers” and Donna J. Haraway’s “worlding”, and helpful practice methods, such as VestAndPage’s “poetics of relations" and Haraway’s (SF) speculative fiction. Through a first guided practical exploration with a nonhuman partner and shared reflections, you can directly experience these concepts. The week's task is to write about that experience.

Week 2: Ethics of Collaboration: Between Domination and Reciprocity
Week Two asks us to examine the ethical dimensions of cooperation with the nonhuman. Through the critical lens of last week’s experience, which we share, we look at power dynamics between domination and reciprocity, as well as anthropocentrism and anthropomorphisation. The theories of actor-network and object democracy by Bruno Latour and Graham Haman serve as torches to illuminate these aspects. A practical task to be developed individually during the week rounds up this step.

Week 3: Speculative and Empirical Potentials of the Symbiotic
In Week Three, we inquire about the speculative and empirical potentials of the symbiotic in nonhuman co-creations. Through the lens of the shared last week’s experience and additional artist examples, you build the base for developing your experiential theory and practice of nonhuman performance-making. A practical task to be developed individually during the week sets the base for your experiential theory development.

Week 4: The Relationship as Told by You
In the concluding week, you tell in your own words about theory and practice based on your course discoveries. In a final practical exploration, you engage in the collaborative potential of the symbiotic realms.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alexandrowicz Conrad, Performing the Nonhuman: Towards a Theatre of Transformation, Routledge, 2025.
Braidotti Rosi and Hlavajova Maria, The Posthuman Glossary, Bloomsburg Publishing, 2018.
Haraway Donna J, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, Duke University Press, 2016.
Morton Timothy, Thinking Ecology: The Mesh, the Strange Stranger, and the Beautiful Soul, Collapse 6:265-293, 2010.
Latour Bruno, On actor-network theory. A few clarifications plus more than a few complications, Soziale Welt, vol. 47, pp. 369-381, 1996.
Briant Levi, The Democracy of Objects, Open Humanities Press, 2011.
Haman Graham, Object-Oriented Ontology: A new theory of everything, Pelican, 2018.
Cull Ó Maoilearca Laura, Unlearning Anthropocentrism in Performance Studies. Towards an interspecies ethics of knowledge, 2022.
Margulis Lynn, The Symbiotic Planet, Basic Books, 1998.