Is the Disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, a New Normal?
Shocking events like the 2023 Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, often get framed as just that–shocking. Alex George and Kimberley Thomas reframe the incident around normal accident theory to emphasize the structural problems at the heart of the train industry …
Botany’s Colonial Present and Alternative Futures: A Conversation with Banu Subramaniam
Laleh Ahmad speaks with Banu Subramaniam about her recent book Botany of Empire: Plant Worlds and the Scientific Legacies of Colonialism. Their conversation explores how colonialism shaped botany and considers how we might imagine alternative futures …
Technological Mediations for Interspecies Communication
Alizée Armet asks what happens when we stop trying to interpret plants and fungi as if they were speaking our language. Through a series of living art installations, she explores how humans, plants, fungi, and technology can form new kinds of relationships that challenge human ideas of communication …
Translation, Agroforestry, and the Language of Plants
At first glance, language and restorative agriculture may seem unrelated. But by combining expertise in translation studies and agroforestry, Lia A. Miranda de Lima and Lucas Sigefredo uncover ways of thinking about the language of plants …
Thinking with Maíz: A Conversation with Vick Quezada and Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra
Artist Vick Quezada and evolutionary biologist Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra both center maíz in their work despite their very different approaches. Together with M. Hamilton Wilson, these scholars explore the co-evolution of humans and maiz (corn), through the lens of cultural history, art and performance, science, and language …
The Colonial Costs of Shipbreaking
The shipbreaking industry in Bangladesh is often hailed as an economic success story. Md. Borhan Uddin and Kimberley Thomas explain why this industry is, in fact, an extension of colonial logics …
Reggae’s Agrarian Resistance
The plantation histories and logics carried through roots reggae music inspired Carmen Andall‑Woodroofe to pursue a Ph.D. In this essay, she centers that music to examine plantation futures—and the ways reggae resists them …
El Contrato Químico
Micaela Edelson revela los costos para la salud—a menudo ocultos—que conlleva la exposición a pesticidas para los trabajadores agrícolas migrantes en Estados Unidos …
The Worlding Work of Plants: A Conversation with Michael Marder
M. Hamilton and Ellie Kincaid talk plants with Michael Marder. Their conversation invites readers to consider plants as active participants in thought and world‑making …
Learning from Japanese Knotweed in Brussels’s Feral Wetlands
In the abandoned, deindustrialized interstices of Brussels, feral wetlands flourish. Drawing on conversations with residents, Louise Bazelaire explores the history and politics of these liminal spaces through a plant that is loved and hated in equal measure: Japanese knotweed …
The Tenth Century Equivalent of 🍑 🍆? 🥬.
When Tiffany VanWinkoop looked through letters between Constantine VII and his friend, she was surprised to read erotic requests for and descriptions of lettuce. Might lettuce be a tenth century equivalent of the contemporary eggplant and peach emoji? …
Fronds of Knowledge and Decolonial Fern Relations in the Sikkim Himalayas
Views of ferns are as abundant as the plants themselves. Drawing on Indigenous knowledge and a lifetime of close attention, Kalzang Dorjee Bhutia shows how ferns act as decolonial agents—and how they have long been shaped by the landscapes of empire …
