Circle 5: Ecology of Transformative Learning Practices With/In A More-than-human World

In this study circle, we nurture a diversity of practices for mutual learning and knowledge creation through conversation and play with the “more than human”. We build a community of practice, where we create ‘playgrounds’, ‘ephemeral ponds’ or spaces of not knowing, which are focused around prompts and themes for especially young scholars to experience and test methods, and examine afterwards through their own frameworks/theories. These spaces aim to instill opportunities to grow epistemological humility and inner pathways toward responsibility. 

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About our circle

We see academic and other learning spaces as “ephemeral ponds” of inquiry: how do we reshape learning organisations into a place that leaves space for life to evolve beyond the industrial techno-solutionary and media-marketable sci-craze gaze? What is sanctuary in academia? To whose needs are schools and institutions academia responding and how? What are the edges of organizations, where do they get stuck? Is academia a place for learning and expanding collective knowledge? What would it look like if academia were a place of composting scientific hubris and a place of mental health care? Can academia model eldership? What is the future of learning? 

What if academia can be a place that expands – by bringing together the siloed fragments of scientific expertise into a space that is gesturing toward humility in light of the Not Knowing?

This study circle project invites academics and practitioners to meet on land and online. Each symposium will introduce current (re)search practices, such as forest bathing (Wuyts 2024), warm data labs, writing with plants. These practices are embedded in academic theories (Bateson, 2023; Akomolafe, 2023;  Morton, 2024; Manning, 2022; Roy, 2018; Sehgal, 2024). Through connecting transdisciplinary academic approaches with the deeply personal, ancestral/historic, place- and context-based embodied experiences, we deliberately invite other species to our own human cultural contexts.  

Next events – open to join:

Learn more about the next symposia and find the calls for papers, poems and practices for each symposium. If you want to receive announcements in your mailbox, please sign up to our newsletter. Our circle’s newsletter has around around 170 subscribers (Update 17 August 2026).

Online Autumn symposium 2026

Big keyword: Eco+Thanatology

12-13 December 2026

Call for papers, practices, poetry, prayers…: 15 August-15 September

Read and download the detailed call here.

The timing of our online (late) autumn gathering is no coincidence: it is a moment to listen to other stories of dying, decomposing, and returning in a different shape that might guide us into futures of mutual learning, becoming and belonging. In that spirit, we invite participants to try out and try on transformational learning practices fit to these December days: 

  • dining with the (more-than-human) dead; 
  • writing mortuaries accompanied by chrysanthemums; 
  • annual practices of tending graveyards, held consciously alongside feminist political ecology considerations; 
  • composing a multispecies death portrait; 
  • paddling with ghosts of the past on mythical rivers descending into underworlds; 
  • mourning with horses;
  • studying death with rats (e.g. Nelson, 2020),
  • gathering in a more-than-human fishbowl to deliberate how to bury a newly extinct being.
  • … (surprise us with your proposal of a transformational learning practice).

This online symposium asks

  • What needs to die? And why? 
  • What can non-human fauna, flora, fungi… teach us about letting go, releasing, mourning and grief? 
  •  How might we resist shoring up colonial and other universalizing narratives when death emerges through everyday encounter?  (Nelson, 2020)
  • What stories help us matter differently as we continue to world with others in this time of rapid change? (Nelson, 2020)
  • Why do we need new or renewed rituals and stories of death or renewed ones for dying well with the more-than-human world (rather than merely among it)?
  • Which new death-practices or renewed death-practices can we renew? 
  • How can eco-thanatology inform our practices of mourning, burial, and letting go?
  • Which ethical charters and protocols can serve palliative care and grief for and with(in) the more than human world? 
  • Which (eco)myths involving the more-than-human world can teach us more about coping with death?
  • How can we make our deaths and palliative care practices more sustainable? 
  • Which learnings and practices contribute to the co-creation of an eco-thanatology?
  • …

Selection Criteria
In shaping the program, priority will be given to:

  • the Nordic and Baltic context, drawing on regional folktales, landscapes, living traditions, practices, poems, prayers… 
  • Contributions from members of our study circle 2026, and those planning to join us in Lithuania for the Winter/Spring symposium 2027 and/or in Sweden for the Summer session 2027.

Key dates

  • Call for proposals: 15 September.
  • News about acceptance and first programme: 02 October
  • Registration deadline for presenters and other participants: 01 December  
  • Online symposium: Saturday 12- Sunday 13 December

Pricing

We work with 2 prices. 

  1. 20 euros for NSU 2026 members (= you participated in our winter and/or summer symposium 2026)
  2. 70 euros for non-NSU 2026 members

Both presenters and the people who will not present and want to participate and learn together – can register and pay in November. The tickets will appear in the NSU webshop by November 1st. 

This investment of yours covers…

  • Miroboard, Zoom and website costs
  • Access to a platform, network and collective wisdom for mutual learning 
  • Communication through structured emails (before, during and after the symposium)
  • 10 euros per person will be used to buy, install and maintain a rainwater storage and filter solution at the location of our winter/spring symposium 2027 in Lithuania: we want to give back to a place where we gather and (un)learn with(in) the more-than-human world.

How to Apply

Send your proposal (max 1000 words / 2 pages, including visuals) to: Dr. Wendy Wuyts (wendywwuyts@gmail.com) and Dr. Heide Maria Baden (heidenjoy@gmail.com) and complete the questionnaire by 15 September (midnight, Copenhagen time).

Please include:

  1. Title of your presentation / performance / contribution
  2. Short bio (max 200 words, including a minimum 3 relations you have with the more-than-human world)
  3. What does eco+thanatology mean to you? Add an example of how it shows itself to you or how/when/where you notice it. 
  4. What will you share during the Autumn Symposium? Description of your transformative learning practice(s) with/in a more-than-human world you propose to experience during Eco+thanatology2026 symposium. – please fill out the questionnaire, which will help you to formulate your proposal.
  5. Practical details → How much time do you need? (30–90 min, teams of 2–3 welcome)
  6. Inspiration → Key artistic and/or academic references
  7. Let us know if you would like to write a blogpost early 2027 for www.woodwidewebstories.com (commission: 200 euros per blogpost or scholarship for free accommodation and food during the winter symposium 2027 in Lithuania). Please share possible titles and how it is connected with the theme of eco+thanatology. 

Creativity is welcome! Text, drawings, photo images, and poetic formats can all be part of your proposal!

Read and download the detailed call here.

Contributors in our study circle (2025-2027):

Initiators and coordinators: Heide Maria Baden, Evelin Grauen, Vitalija Petri-Povilaityte, Lisa Sattell, Wendy Wuyts

Participants: Michael Marder,  Irena Chawrilska, Rick Dolphijn , Swamps, Yogi Hale Hendlin, Anika Spindelmann, Apple tree, Katriina Kilpi,  elin kelsey, esmé johnson, Wenlin Tan, water bodies, Evelyne Vogel-Leutung, Sandy Heylen, Summer, Marjan Khaleghi, Alette Willis, the Baltic Sea, Liene Jurgelane, Una Thorlaksdottir,  Yingying He , Birch, Magdalena Tabernacka,  Corrie Tan, banyan tree, Kārlis Lakševics, Ceallaigh S. MacCath-Moran, Greta Valvonyte, a Danish castle, Jonas Petri, Maria Sol, Carsten Friberg, Åse, Miriam, yew trees, and many more beings and becomings.

Learn more about/from our previous symposia:

Winter symposium 2025, Sandholt, Island of Fun, Denmark, 20-21 March 2025, keyword: eco+logy

Bigger title: Re-rooting and restor(y)ing academic spaces

Photographs by Vitalija >>

Summer symposium 2025, Jyväskylä, Finland, 23-28 July, keyword: eco+nomy

Bigger title: Webbing, Winging and Weaving Economies for Rewilding Academic and Organisational places

Photographs by Vitalija >>>

Winter symposium 2026, online, 17-18 January, keyword: eco+mythology

If you are interested in exploring the concept of eco+mythology and be informed about more online symposia and outcomes, please sign up to a newsletter mail list that we started after this symposium.

sign up for the eco+mythology mailing list and newsletter

Summer Symposium 2026, Saulkrasti, Latvia, 24-31 July, keyword: eco+tones

  • Call for proposals and more background information (closed 01 April 2026)
  • Eco+tones are zones of encounter. The prefix eco, from oikos, speaks of home: the place we inhabit, the watershed that holds us, the landscapes (human and more-than-human) that sustain life. Tones, by contrast, signal tensions: pain points, frictions, dissonances, but also cracks through which new possibilities can emerge. Tone also refers to the general character of atmosphere or attitude of a place, piece of writing, situation.
  • Responsible coordinators: Vitalija Povilaityte-Petri & Wendy Wuyts
  • The programme
  • BLOG with a first synthesis (by Wendy Wuyts, 10/08/2026)
  • BLOG: Brewing soil soup in a cauldron – tools for online magic (by Wenlin Tan, 09/08/2026)
  • CONFERENCE PRESENTATION: Tan, W. (2026, September 24). Belonging at the ecotone: Learning from a river, a rowing club, and a city [Conference presentation]. Biophilia Summit 2026: Biophilia in Practice: Sensing, Belonging, Regenerating, Online. https://lfeurope.regfox.com/biophilia-summit-2026

Photographs by Wendy Wuyts >>

Autumn Symposium 2027, online, 31 March-01 April, keyword: eco+thanatology

Winter Symposium 2027, Šeduva, Lithuania, 31 March-01 April, keyword: eco+hygieia

  • The call will be published in September 2026.
  • Main responsible coordinator: Vitalija Petri-Povilaityte – please contact her for more details.

Summer Symposium 2027, Nyland, Sweden, dates TBC, keyword: eco+graphing

  • The call will be published in February 2027.
  • Main responsible coordinator: Vitalija Petri-Povilaityte & Lisa Sattell – please contact them for more details.
  • The outcomes of the 7 symposia and satellite events of this study circle will be processed after summer 2027 into an academic article, led by Dr. Wendy Wuyts. Contact Wendy if you want to learn more.

Satellite events (online pre-events)

  • Online writing(with)plant sessions – read more here about the practice 
  • Online warm data lab  – read more here about the theory and practice

Shared vision for September 2027

By the end of the circle, we, as a diverse team of learners, have united in our conspiring so that we begin to see the more-than-human and bio-neuro-cultural diversity in general as our greatest allies, both in nourishing all forms of life, cooling the planet, regulating our nervous systems, and bridging between cosmologies.

Sign up to our internal newsletter:

To follow the circle and/or updates about the symposia, please sign up to our mail list, especially for NSU circle 5. Every month, we sent a short update. You can sign up for our mailing list by clicking here or scan this QR code:

Vitalija Povilaityte-Petri
Coordinator Study Circle 5
Wendy Wuyts
Coordinator Study Circle 5

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