Eva Meijer, "Multispecies Assemblies" (Vine Press, 2025)

08/11/2025 1h 4min
Eva Meijer, "Multispecies Assemblies" (Vine Press, 2025)

Listen "Eva Meijer, "Multispecies Assemblies" (Vine Press, 2025)"

Episode Synopsis

Podcast: New Books in Critical Theory (LS 47 · TOP 1% what is this?)Episode: Eva Meijer, "Multispecies Assemblies" (Vine Press, 2025)Pub date: 2025-10-21Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationAnimals speak. Plants do too. Seas and mountains are not a mute background to human actions, but have interests and agency. Many more-than-human beings are political actors. All of us are part of a web of relations in which we affect others and are affected by them. To counter the current ecological destruction and find more just ways to co-exist, humans need new ways of doing politics with other earth beings. In Multispecies Assemblies (Vine Press, 2025), Dutch philosopher Eva Meijer develops such a new political model: the multispecies assembly. Multispecies assemblies are a form of direct democracy in which some beings speak for themselves and others are represented. Living differently as humans is possible, but we must begin to listen to others, and learn from them.
Eva Meijer is a philosopher, visual artist, writer and singer-songwriter. They write novels, philosophical essays, academic texts, poems and columns, and their work has been translated into over twenty languages. Recurring themes are language including silence, madness, nonhuman animals, and politics. Meijer also works as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam, writes essays and columns for Dutch newspapers, and is a member of the Multispecies Collective.
Kyle Johannsen is Sessional Faculty Member in the Department of Philosophy at Trent University. His most recent authored book is Wild Animal Ethics: The Moral and Political Problem of Wild Animal Suffering (Routledge, 2021). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theoryThe podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Marshall Poe, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.