Dr E.E.M.M. de Mul (Elize)

I have a background in media studies and philosophy. My interest lies in the relationship that humans maintain with the world and themselves. My dissertation focused on the way in which new digital image technologies and their applications (for example in the form of selfies, internet memes and deepfake video content) mediate human self-experience and what place they occupy in identity construction.

I have now focused on human-nature relationships and I conduct research into 'green media', in particular analog multispecies 'designs' (such as food forests). I approach such biotopes as 'border phenomena' that challenge old thinking patterns such as human-animal, culture-nature, agriculture and nature reserves and can potentially help make them porous.

I am also part of the research team of the Comenius research project 'You Have A Part to Play', a three-year study that focuses on Higher Education for Sustainability (HESD) and the question of how sustainability (in the broad sense of the concept) could become a common denominator for all education at the RU and the UMC, while keeping eye for disciplinary differences and the various educational cultures within our university.