Scorched Earth Press & friends decided, about a year and a half ago, to study plants–that is, to bring the cross-disciplinary approach used in animal studies to bear on questions like, Are plants people? Do they talk? Do they “do things?” Do they have a politics of their own and, if so, how can human beings come to grips with it? Plenty of folks have done their bit to make this kind of “plant studies” a thing, but we had trouble finding an online botany syllabus that covered all the topics of interest to us.
So, we came up with this strange mix of academic articles, longform pieces, sciencey stuff, virtual exhibits, and of course a whole lot of Robin Wall Kimmerer. We’re sharing it in case you too have been looking for a not-too-serious plant studies reading list. We’ll update it from time to time as we encounter readings we wish we’d read as part of our group.
Who are plants? (What are people?)
Science Background
- “What is a plant?“: first section of an article from the Atlas of Ancient Life
Readings / Multimedia
- The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary: virtual exhibit from the NY Botanical Garden
- Person as upside-down tree: excerpts from Plato’s Timaeus, from Cooper’s ed. of Plato [3 pp.]
- Marder, Plant-Thinking, Ch. 1 [36 pp. – academic] OR posts from Marder’s blog
Additional
- Theophrastus, On Plants I.1-2 [this is admittedly boring. But might be of some interest to skim & get a sense of T’s “project”]
Plants in person language: taxonomy and naming
Science Background
- Taxonomy lite Pt 1 and Pt 2; Plant Structures
Readings
- Pavord, The Naming of Names. [~60 pp – popular nonfiction]
- Le Guin, “She Unnames Them” [3 pp. New Yorker subscribers can also find it here]
- Wall Kimmerer, “Learning to See,” in Gathering Moss [7 pp.]
Multimedia
- 19th-century floriographies: Waterman, Flora’s Lexicon, or this satire(?) of the “language of flowers” genre, The Floral Telegraph
- “Linnaeus and the Terminator Seed” [15 min. film – no longer available, but here is an interview with the author]
Plants in their own language?
Science Background
- Chamovitz, “What a Plant Feels” unit in Coursera and/or
- In Defense of Plants podcast, “The Chemical Symphony of Plant Perception”
Readings
- Coccia, “10. Roots” [ in The Life of Plants: A Metaphysics of Mixture – 4.5 pp.]
- Baker, “The Intelligence of Plants and the Problem of Language” [16 academic pp.]
- Le Guin, “The Author of the Acacia Seeds” [9 pp.]
- Janisse, “Murder Season” (“reading time 60 minutes”)
- Wall Kimmerer, “Learning the grammar of animacy” [in Braiding Sweetgrass; this Believer interview covers much the same ground]
Multimedia
- xkcd: Bee Orchid
- Christine Ödlund: Stress Call of the Stinging Nettle (artwork and music). More plant art on Ödlund’s site
- Plants draw with / for Tim Knowles in Cabinet
What plants do for us
Readings:
- Wall Kimmerer, “Mishkos Kenomagwen: The Teachings of Grass” [10 pp. from Braiding Sweetgrass]
- Michael Pollan, “Opium Made Easy” (long popular nonfiction essay)
- Voeks, “Disturbance Pharmacopoeias” (19 dense-ish pages)
- houzz.com, “Myth: This Plant Likes/Prefers to be Root-bound”
- Simpson, “Kwezens is out walking” (poem from article. Glossed version here)
What plants do for themselves: plants as agents
Readings:
- Posthuman Glossary, p. 265, “Multispecies”[1 page]
- Franklin, “A Choreography of Fire: A Posthumanist Account of Australians and Eucalyptus” (27 pp.)
- Laird, “Spores from Space” (Covert Plants p. 62 – 15 pp.)
- Coccia, “In open air” (9 pp.)
- Wall Kimmerer, “The Advantages of Being Small,” in Gathering Moss (7 short pages)
- Irons, “Why say ‘weed’ in the Capitalocene?” (6 pp. or so)
- “The vine and the fish” (graphic essay in the Believer)
Plants in our politics
Readings:
- Hetherington, “Beans before the law” [18 pages]
- Wall Kimmerer, “Maple Nation: A Citizenship Guide” [7 pages, in Braiding Sweetgrass]
- Taussig, Palma Africana pp. 1-13 [would now perhaps read Bergamin, “Bitter Fruit,” instead]
- Bousfield, “Settler Colonialism in Vegetal Worlds” [19 pages, academic]
Multimedia:
- Dumbarton Oaks exhibit [A big exhibit, so perhaps focus on the Plants for Profit and Gardens sections]
- Feral Atlas
- Favorites: “likes human disturbance”; “GRID”
Plant society
Readings:
- Tsing, “More-than-human sociality: a call for critical description” (16 pages, academic)
- Posthuman Glossary, pp. 162-167: “Forests” [3 pp.]
- Goldberg-Hiller, Silva, “The Botany of Emergence: Kanaka Ontology and Biocolonialism in Hawai’i” (19 pages, academic)
- Sandilands: “Floral Sensations: Plant Biopolitics,” in The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Political Theory (11 pages, academic)
- Myers, “How to grow livable worlds” (9-page document) [also in Spanish]
- Wall Kimmerer, “The Serviceberry” (also in podcast form)