Relations and Difference: Teaching the Human and More-than-Human Ecologies in Germany

When the world churns with injustices, what possibilities emerge in thinking across multispecies relations? Grounded in multidisciplinary encounters with ice, octopuses, and farmers who graze goats in lethal landscapes, among others, this article draws on my experiences of teaching the Human and More-than-Human Ecologies course at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich. The article proposes that engaging with irreducible lifeworlds in the thickness of their structural inequalities might 1) help build the interpretive skills to assess dominant environmentalisms, and 2) cultivate an open orientation towards the world in all its horror and wonder.