Reimagining Death in an All-Too-Human World: A Pedagogical Exploration of Pinar Yoldas' Ecosystem of Excess

Abstract

This article offers a pedagogical response to Pinar Yoldas’ Ecosystem of Excess, a speculative marine ecosystem of creatures that have evolved to survive the human-induced proliferation of plastic. In questioning our relationship to death in an era of ecological devastation due to excessive consumption, it proposes a pedagogy of ambivalence to explore what Ecosystem of Excess can teach us about our complicated relations with death. The article then develops three articulations of death—death beyond finality, silent death, and relational death—that are generative for attending to the multi-faceted ways ambivalence manifests itself in the context of more-than-human death.