Martin Lee Mueller

Martin Lee Mueller, PhD, received his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Oslo in 2016. Before that, he received his master’s degree in culture, environment, and sustainability at the University of Oslo’s Center for Development and the Environment (SUM). He has previously helped build teaching centers in rural Mongolia, worked as a kindergarten teacher, been an elementary school librarian, and led a wilderness school in the Norwegian forest. Recently he has also been touring as a storyteller to festivals in the U.K. and Scandinavia, with a stage performance inspired by this book. Salmon Fairytale weaves together philosophy, traditional storytelling, and Samí joik music. He lives in Oslo together with his partner and daughter.

Being Salmon, Being Human: Preface

We inhabitants of industrial civilization still live inside a human-centered story. The story articulates itself in the ways we speak, what we think, how we listen, what we hear. It expresses itself in the physical forms of our life-worlds, in our legal, political, and economic institutions. It gives structure to the way we conceive of and inhabit both space and time. It shapes our encounters with other-than-human living creatures, as well as with the larger planetary presence. This is the story of the human as a separate self.

October 23, 2017