Baltic Waterscapes: Liquid Life in Europe's North

Speakers: Dr. Rick Dolphijn and Dr. Irena Chawrilska

Date: July 8, 2026 (Wednesday)
Time: 6:30-7:30PM
Venue: CPD-2.14, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU
Registration: https://hku.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6mJQw1g86u0ieOy?Q_CHL=qr

Abstract of the Talk:

This talk explores the Greater Baltic as a brackish, fragile, and more-than-human waterscape where water actively shapes European history, ecology, and thought. It follows currents, sediments, algae blooms, infrastructures, extraction, and multispecies entanglements across a living medium of encounter.

The Baltic emerges as a dense ecological-political field shaped by long histories of power, environmental crisis, and geopolitical instability. Its shallow waters, shifting coastlines, peatlands, and industrial littorals generate forms of perception and thought that are material, poetic, and conceptually rich.

The presentation brings theory into contact with lived ecological experience and presents the Baltic as a horizon for thinking relationality, vulnerability, and coexistence in Europe today.

About the Speakers

About Dr. Rick Dolphijn

Dr Rick Dolphijn is a writer, educator and curator who serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Culture Studies and the coordinator of the More-than-Human Studies Lab at Utrecht University. He has published widely on continental philosophy, particularly the works of Gilles Deleuze and Michel Serres, as well as on contemporary art. His research interests include posthumanism, new materialism, material culture (food studies) and ecology. He is currently working on geophilosophy and more-than-human lives.

About Dr. Irena Chawrilska

Dr Irena Chawrilska is an assistant professor and literary studies researcher. She explores environmental humanities, particularly wetlands and swamplife, hybridity and experimental literature. She is currently working on the theory of swamplife and more-than-human thinking. She serves as the director of the Academic Centre for Polish Language and Culture, as well as the coordinator of the More-than-Human Studies Lab at the Centre for Sustainable Development at the University of Gdańsk, Poland.