More-than-Human Studies Lab programme of the Centre for Sustainable Development
The More-than-human Studies Lab is a 21st century transnational open collaboration between academia at large, art institutes, NGO’s and others, that explores in what way our stormy times urge us to live our lives otherwise.
The lab is rooted in multiple intellectual and theoretical developments from the 20th century that include actor-network theory, systems theory, new materialism, post humanism, STS, feminist/queer/postcolonial theory, as well as the revitalization of non-western traditions in knowledge.
Engaging all the faculties of knowledge, it explores a humanism which is not based on parasitic relationships but on symbiosis.
Opening our eyes to the more-than-human world, the joint aim should be engaging actively with the rereading, rethinking, and rewriting, of the sympoietic alliances that we have been blind to for so long.
dr Irena Chawrilska
Coordinator of the Program: More-than-Human Studies Lab
Director of the Academic Center for Polish Language and Culture at the University of Gdansk, coordinator of the More-than-Human Studies Lab at the UG Center for Sustainable Development; Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Polish Studies at the Institute of Polish Philology; PI in the international research project „CONVIVIUM: New European Bauhaus Solutions In Food, Living Heritage, And Convivality” (Horizon Europe 2024–2027), visiting scholar at Utrecht University (2023), Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University (2025), visiting professor at the University of Toronto (2023–2024); author of books: Hybrids and hybridity: from the borderland of literature and visual arts (2020), Polish for sustainability? Polish culture and global challenges (2022), LOST in Gdansk! Polish culture in the age of uncertainty (2023). In years 2021-2024 coordinator of the Culture fof Sustainable Development Programme at the Centre for Sustainable Development at UG.
Her research interests focus on:
environmental humanities, philosophy of the land, in particular wetlands and swamplife, literature and art in teaching Polish as a foreign language, migration experience in the process of education, the phenomenon of hybridity in culture, experimental literature, and the reception of Bruno Schulz’s works in the world
The more-than-human studies lab that opens our eyes to new alliances is not about decentring the human, it is not about the new turn in the humanities, it is about embracing climate change, drought, biotechnology, war, terrorism and rethinking how we can work towards broad sustainability. In times of crisis and uncertainty, higher education institutions have a unique role to play in transforming the university in this regard, generating new ideas and developing solutions for a sustainable future. In our More-than-Human Studies Lab, we aim to create new alliances for new shared ideas about how to think together and otherwise coexist in stormy times.
dr Irena Chawrilska
Coordinator of the Program: More-than-Human Studies Lab
Philosopher and curator, explores posthumanism, new materialisms, and ecology. Professor at UU, collaborator with HKU, UAB, and UG, and author of books on matter and culture.
Partner at 4CF The Futures Literacy Company, foresight expert, advisor to FAO, UNESCO, UNDP, lecturer at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities and the University of Science and Technology, member of the Global Foresight Network
Doctor of Literary Studies, film scholar, and specialist at the Academic Center for Polish Language. Co-author of books. Member of the Polish Shakespeare Society.
Doctor of Cultural Studies, music educator, festival producer and organizer, author of books, and manager of European projects.
Literary scholar, head of the Department of Research on Anglophone Literature at the University of Gdańsk. Specializes in environmental humanities and phenomenology. Author of monographs and editor of books.
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