Dr. Rosine Kelz 

Abstract – Workshop

Climate change and biodiversity loss have inspired new forms of environmental activism and

institutionalized environmental politics. The novel prominence of nonhuman living beings and

entities in the political realm necessitates the reformulation of core concepts of political theory, like

agency, responsibility and justice. At the same time, the Anthropocene thesis has inspired theorists

in the social sciences and humanities to develop new conceptual engagements with the non-human

world, expressed by terms such as the “more-than-human” or “NatureCultures”. The workshop

invites participants from the discipline of political theory to explore how such conceptual

developments in neighboring disciplines can help to rethink the relationships between humans and

animals and between humans and their planetary environment in political terms. Participants from

environmental philosophy, science and technology studies and geography are invited to explore the

political significance of their ideas of the “more-than-human”. This interdisciplinary exchange will

establish a broader basis for environmental political theory as a subfield of research in the German

political theory community, while strengthening international research collaborations. Together,

participants from across the social sciences and humanities explore synergies and disagreements in

environmental thought, and develop strategies for successful collaborations with the natural

sciences, policy makers and the public sphere.