STS.430 Multi-Species Histories of Plant People, Wild and Cultivated
Fall 2020
Wednesdays 4-7
Professor Kate Brown
Units: 3-0-9
Examines how centering plants changes our understanding of what it means to be human. Considers how, in response to the naming of the Anthropocene and anxieties over ecological crises, researchers in various fields have turned to plants as central players. Using this as a starting point, explores how researchers have described and re-calibrated relations among plants, humans, and environment, between life and non-life, action and being, subjectivity and autonomy in ways that radically altered ruling epistemologies in a range of disciplines. Looks at how philosophers, farmers, foresters, eco-critics, geographers, botanists, and popular science writers adapted research questions and narratives to incorporate not only plant uses, but plant intelligence and sentience.