Reading Circle: Multispecies Cities – an Unearthed x Open Cities collaboration

In collaboration with the reading group unearthed (hosted by the environmental humanities network in Utrecht), the Open Cities Platform is organizing a friendly, casual meeting to explore the topic of multispecies cities.

To fuel our conversation, we’ll be reading a short book chapter on designing more-than-human smart cities, as well as a short story from a solarpunk anthology. The readings offer provocative, and fantastical stories helping us imagine what it would look like to share urban spaces with a variety of nonhuman animals. All are welcome, though it does help if you come prepared.

• Cade, Octavia. 2021. “The Streams are Paved with Fish Traps” From Multispecies Cities Solarpunk Urban Futures eds. Rupprecht Cleland, Tamura, Chaudhuri, Ulibarri. World Weaver Press.
• Gaver, Bill, Andy Boucher, Dean Brown, Naho Matsuda, Liliana Ovalle, Andy Sheen, and Mike Vanis. 2024. “Exploring More-than-Human Smart Cities: The Emergent Logic of a Design Workbook.” In Designing More-than-Human Smart Cities: Beyond Sustainability, Towards Cohabitation, edited by Sara Heitlinger, Marcus Foth, and Rachel Clarke, 0. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/9780191980060.003.006.

This event is part of the ongoing “reading circles” series by the Open Cities Platform that offers a chance to 'sit with texts', allowing participants to engage with scholarship that informs new perspectives on the contemporary and historical relationships between cities, media, and identities. This session will be hosted by Laura op de Beke, assistant professor of Interactive media at the UU and founder of un-earthed, an environmental humanities reading group: www.un-earthed.group.