Category: Essays

  • When Was the Last Time You Saw a Firefly?

    When Was the Last Time You Saw a Firefly?

    By

    Erin Hassett

    in

    To Erin Hassett, the light of the firefly is not just a chemical reaction but the magic of childhood itself. As insects rapidly disappear, she reflects on her intimate relationship with the lightning bug, the tensions between science and magic that it sparks, and how we might create a brighter future.

  • Beautiful Sludge as Queer Ecology

    Beautiful Sludge as Queer Ecology

    By

    Quinn Luthy

    in

    During the Covid-19 pandemic, Quinn Luthy found refuge in the Newtown Creek, a superfind site in New York City. Its toxic sludge and dandelion wilds harbor queer ecology and nonbinary resistance.

  • Legados de las plantaciones

    Legados de las plantaciones

    By

    Sophie Sapp Moore

    ,

    Monique Allewaert

    ,

    Pablo F. Gómez

    and

    Gregg Mitman

    in

    El Antropoceno da nombre al cambio ambiental provocado por la acción humana. El Plantacionoceno sitúa el colonialismo, el capitalismo y las jerarquías raciales persistentes en el centro de la conversación y se pregunta qué modos de resistencia, pasados y futuros, podrían surgir.

  • Mapping the Social Lives of Rattlesnakes

    Mapping the Social Lives of Rattlesnakes

    By

    Amber Aumiller

    in ,

    For many people, rattlesnakes are scary at worst, mysterious at best. Amber Aumiller maps rattlesnakes’ social lives and where they intersect with humans’ in Utah’s San Rafael Swell. These desert kin, she shows, are much more complex than most people imagine.

  • Lukas Marxt Lets the Toxins Speak

    Lukas Marxt Lets the Toxins Speak

    By

    Juntao Yang

    in ,

    Juntao Yang examines how Lukas Marxt renders the specter of toxicity visible and knowable in his experimental film, Among The Palms The Bomb (2024). The film, they argue, is a study of the technology of witnessing and a call for deep attunement to the land.

  • Landscapes of Displacement and the Politics of Dead Pets

    Landscapes of Displacement and the Politics of Dead Pets

    By

    Zak Breckenridge

    in

    In 1977, the pets of a Los Altos, California cemetery were exhumed and relocated to Napa. Zak Breckenridge argues Errol Morris’s Gates of Heaven documentary on the event is a prehistory of today’s housing and land crisis.

  • Plants By Any Other Name

    Plants By Any Other Name

    By

    Jens Benöhr

    ,

    Constanza López

    and

    Kara Lena Virik

    in

    What’s in a name? Knowledge, power, and history, Jens Benöhr, Constanza López, and Kara Lena Virik argue. The scientific names of plants root botanical knowledge in colonial relationships. To decolonize ecology, we must embrace the pluriverse of knowing, naming, and living with the world.

  • Tracing Landslides by Motorcycle

    Tracing Landslides by Motorcycle

    By

    Mohammed Labeeb

    in

    Riding the Western Ghats on motorcycle, Mohammed Labeeb reads the terrain with his body. His landslide research probes knowledge production, methodology, and proximity in a shifting terrain.

  • Sticks, Stones, and Nested Agency in Wildlife Photography

    Sticks, Stones, and Nested Agency in Wildlife Photography

    By

    Rae Ferner-Rose

    in

    Rae Ferner Rose uses wildlife photography as a lens into nonhuman agency. Snapshots of bowerbirds and pufferfish nests in particular capture the collaborative craft of both “wildlife” and photographer.

  • ¿Por qué Edge Effects?  

    ¿Por qué Edge Effects?  

    By

    William Cronon

    in ,

    Entonces… ¿por qué elegimos “Edge Effects” (Efectos de Borde) como nombre para la Revista oficial del CHE?