Rick Dolphijn is a writer, teacher and curator whose work moves between philosophy, ecology and the arts. Trained in cultural theory and rooted in continental philosophy, he explores how humans live with – and as part of – more‑than‑human worlds, from wetlands and deltas to kitchens and city streets.

At Utrecht University, where he is Associate Professor of Media Studies, he develops teaching and research that invite students and colleagues to experiment with concepts, with methods, and with collaborations beyond the university. For more than a decade he has been building “global classrooms” that connect Utrecht with places such as Hong Kong, Barcelona and Gdańsk, asking what cities and deltas look like when we take the agency of water, soil, animals and infrastructures seriously (and do not think only ‘from the human’). Over time, these exchanges have grown into a broader practice of community‑based research and curatorial projects.

His books and edited volumes trace this development. From early work on foodscapes and everyday life, through his engagement with new materialism and posthumanism, to recent reflections on urban deltas, swamps and extractivism, his writing searches for forms of theory that stay close to the textures of the world. In dialogue with thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze, Michel Serres, Isabelle Stengers and Amitav Ghosh, but also with storytellers, artists and writers, he has published more than a hundred articles and essays in books and journals at the intersection of philosophy, cultural studies and art.

In parallel, Dolphijn has become increasingly involved in large, collaborative (European) projects in which academics, artists, activists and local communities come together. International research consortia on food, conviviality and migration, as well as exhibitions and long‑term artistic collaborations, allow him to test ideas about ecology and justice in concrete contexts (for example in exhibitions). The More‑Than‑Human Studies Lab that he is developing in Utrecht grows out of this desire: to create spaces where philosophy does not interpret the world, but becomes entangled with it, sits with it, listens to it, and helps to imagine other ways of living together.