Botanical Speculations

On the third day of the third moon month, after a six-thousand-year wait, the deities residing in the palace of the Jade Emperor and his wife, Xi Wangmu, feast on the peaches of immortality. The peach tree grows in Xi’s garden, in China’s fabled Kunlun Mountains, and it only covers in leaves once every thousand years. The fruit takes roughly three thousand years to ripen. Everyone who eats the peaches lives for at least three thousand years and their bodies become weightless and strong to an otherworldly degree. For this reason, members of the Eight Immortals are often represented holding a peach, while the white-bearded god of longevity emerges from a peach. These mythical attributes have persisted for millennia in Chinese culture. Peach stones carved in the shape of locks were traditionally worn by children to scare off disease-carrying demons. Peach branches placed above a home’s main door were thought to prevent malevolent ghosts from entering. And the sacred wood of peach trees was made into lethal swords that Daoist masters used to kill demons.

From Giovanni Aloi, Botanical Revolutions: How Plants Changed the Course of Art (Getty; 2025)

University of Minnesota Press is offering a whopping 40% off on their plant studies collection (until February 1st), which also includes 'Estado Vegetal: Performance and Plant Thinking' edited by yours truly and featuring contributions by Michael Marder, Maaike Bleeker, Lucy Cotter, Giovanni Aloi, Dawn Sanders, Catriona Sandilands, Prudence Gibson, Sibila Sotomayor Van Rysseghem, Mandy-Suzanne Wong, Manuela Infante and Marcela Salinas.

Order directly from the UoM website. Link below.

Join me in person or remotely tomorrow, December 8th, 7GMT for my talk at Goldsmiths in London: 'Vegetal Attunements:
On potted plants and the boundaries of care'

The livestream can be accessed at the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ7F8fEm3MtqNVWw_oNzCwA

'Vegetal Entwinements in Philosophy and Art -- a Reader' is out!
Edited by Giovanni Aloi and Michael Marder
Published by MIT

The first reader in critical plant studies, exploring a rapidly growing multidisciplinary field—the intersection of philosophy with plant science and the visual arts.

In recent years, philosophy and art have testified to how anthropocentrism has culturally impoverished our world, leading to the wide destruction of habitats and ecosystems. In this book, Giovanni Aloi and Michael Marder show that the field of critical plant studies can make an important contribution, offering a slew of possibilities for scientific research, local traditions, Indigenous knowledge, history, geography, anthropology, philosophy, and aesthetics to intersect, inform one another, and lead interdisciplinary and transcultural dialogues.

Vegetal Entwinements in Philosophy and Art considers such topics as the presence of plants in the history of philosophy, the shifting status of plants in various traditions, what it means to make art with growing life-forms, and whether or not plants have moral standing. In an experimental vegetal arrangement, the reader presents some of the most influential writing on plants, philosophy, and the arts, together with provocative new contributions, as well as interviews with groundbreaking contemporary artists whose work has greatly enhanced our appreciation of vegetal being.

Featuring contributions by Giovanni Aloi, Maria Theresa Alves, Marlene Atleo, Monica Bakke, Baracco + Wright, Emily Blackmer, Jodi Brandt, Teresa Castro, Dan Choffnes, Mark Dion, D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem, Braden Elliott, Monica Gagliano, Elaine Gan, Prudence Gibson, Manuela Infante, Luce Irigaray, Jonathon Keats, Zayaan Khan, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Eduardo Kohn, Wangari Maathai, Stefano Mancuso, Michael Marder, Nathalie Anguezomo Mba Bikoro, Elaine Miller, Samaneh Moafi, Uriel Orlow, Mark Payne, Allegra Pesenti, Špela Petrič, Michael Pollan, Darren Ranco, Nicholas J. Reo, Angela Roothaan, Marcela Salinas, Catriona A. H. Sandilands, Diana Scherer, Elisabeth E. Schussler, Vandana Shiva, Linda Tegg, Krista Tippet, Anthony Trewavas, Alessandra Viola, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, James H. Wandersee, Lois Weinberger, Kyle Whyte, David Wood,
Anicka Yi

Michael Marder and Giovanni Aloi are indebted to our MIT team and editors, Marc Lowenthal and Anthony Zannino for their advice, guidance, and for producing such a gorgeous book. Our gratitude also goes to the artists who joined us on this wonderful journey.

The publication was supported by a grant from the Community Foundation of Greater New Haven as part of the Urban Haven Project.

Cover design: Giovanni Aloi. Cover image: Diana Scherer, 'Interwoven #4'

A wonderfully rich and thought-provoking special issue of Philosophies dedicated to plants on film.

Thinking Cinema—With Plants Special Issue in journal Philosophies: Thinking Cinema—With Plants

Join us on Wednesday, April 19, 2023
12:00 – 1:00 PM CDT (US Central Time)
for a conversation, introduced by yours truly and moderated by Laura Pustarfi, with Paco Calvo and Natalie Lawrence, authors of 'Planta Sapiens: The New Science of Plant Intelligence'.
The event is organized by 'The Plant Initiative' under the direction of Paul Moss.

More info and free registration here:
https://plantinitiative.org/?gclid=CjwKCAjwrdmhBhBBEiwA4Hx5g4cZEcoX2MwcY7TOi2kitN3iJyv7NWuf3mudRZUc5fQZ7Y2tHsBlIhoCpEkQAvD_BwE

"Hadany says the current theory for how plants make noises centers on their xylem, the tubes that transport water and nutrients from their roots to their stems and leaves. Water in the the xylem is held together by surface tension, just like water sucked through a drinking straw. When an air bubble forms or breaks in the xylem, it might make a little popping noise; bubble formation is more likely during drought stress."

Stressed Plants ‘Cry’—and Some Animals Can Probably Hear Them Microphones capture ultrasonic crackles from plants that are water-deprived or injured

Call for Papers
Inaugural Issue of Plant Perspectives: An Interdisciplinary Journal

The Editorial Board of Plant Perspectives is pleased to invite article submissions for its inaugural issue to be published in early 2024. The journal is a new peer-reviewed, open-access forum, grounded in interdisciplinary plant studies, that explores plant–human interactions in all spatial, temporal and cultural contexts. Plant Perspectives encourages new directions and innovative approaches in the study of the sensory, instrumental and affective entanglements between human, vegetal and ecological spheres.

Published by The White Horse Press, Plant Perspectives will be a place where the paths of different discourses cross and their branches intertwine, where scholars and practitioners with an interest in plants can develop and hone new thinking and where – crucially – plants always take centre stage.

We warmly welcome contributions from those working in diverse academic disciplines concerned with plants including anthropology; Black, Latinx and Ethnic studies; gender studies; geography; history; literary studies; philosophy; and social sciences; from those whose work transcends traditional disciplinary classifications or extends towards the natural sciences; and from those outside the academy, for example, garden and forest practitioners, artists, creative writers and activists.

For the inaugural issue, contributions can address a wide variety of subjects within plant studies, including but not limited to:

art and literature
capitalism, imperialism and economic botany
colonialism, postcolonialism and other power asymmetries
conservation, biodiversity and environmental change
culture, race, and indigeneity
film, media and popular culture
gender and sexuality
governance, rights and ethics
heritage, tourism and leisure
horticulture, agriculture, forestry and arboriculture
medicine, health and care
paleoclimate, climate change, and climate crisis
scientific knowledge and communication
speculative botany
technology and the digital age
the globalisation of plants
theology, religions and spiritualities
traditional botanical knowledge


Articles should be original, unpublished, and not under consideration by another journal. The editors do encourage the submission of translations of articles previously published in languages other than English. Submissions should be between 6,000–10,000 words in length, including references. A summary of 100–150 words along with a list of 4–5 key words should be provided.



For more information or to discuss article ideas, please contact the Editor, Dr John C. Ryan, [email protected] and Deputy Editor, Dr Isis Brook, [email protected]



Submissions opening: 1 May 2023



Submissions closing: 1 September 2023



Submissions guidelines: Coming soon



Editorial Board: www.whpress.co.uk/PP.html



ISSN: 2753-3603 (Online, Open Access)

Plant Perspectives Plant Perspectives is a new forum, grounded in interdisciplinary plant studies, to explore plant–human interactions in all spatial, temporal and cultural contexts. Plants are the central actors here, and the journal encourages new directions in the study of sensory, instrumental and affective enta...

The toothed leaves of Acanthus mollis are without a doubt the most influential vegetal motive to have impacted the history of art and architecture across the globe. It is reported by Vitruvius that the use of acanthus in Greek architecture as the quintessential element of Corinthian capitals was first introduced by architect and sculptor Callimachus during the second half of the 5th century BCE. According to the story, a basket filled with toys was left on the grave of a young girl. A tile was placed above it to shelter the toys from the elements. In the spring Callimachus noticed that a plant of acanthus had grown from under the basket and that its leaves curled downward under the tile. The sculptor returned to his workshop to carve the vision in stone, thus creating the most iconic and time-enduring architectural motive in world’s history—an undisputed emblem of classicism. It is also because of this story that acanthus became a symbol of immortality and rebirth.
Starting from the 1st century CE examples of Indo-Corinthian capitals could be found in Southern Asia as well as in northern India in the Greco-Buddhist art known by the name of Gandhara (Northern Pakistan) in which the plant sometimes symbolizes Buddha’s protection and benevolence. Acanthus leaves also frequently appear on Malaysian and Chinese vases as well as funerary jars.

The history of scientific visuality in the west is deeply entrenched in practices that by essence are extractionist and isolating: objectifying aesthetic strategies born of masculine and colonialist mindsets. Devising new aesthetic modalities to represent the non-human, and plants especially, constitutes a valuable opportunity to rethink agency and beauty in order to reposition ourselves in the world not as detached and objective observers but as active participants enmeshed in deep and indispensable kinship. It is in this context that the experimental aesthetics deployed in 'Microcosms: A Homage to Sacred Plants of the Americas' by
Jill Pflugheber & Steven F. White help us to see beyond the objectifying tropes of early natural history and still-life painting. The result is a visually outstanding insight into a deeper realm—a dimension of interconnectedness in which science and the spiritual no longer are mutually exclusive. The images of sacred plants of the Americas comprised in 'Microcosms' thus effectively bridge historical, technological, scientific, and artistic fields of research to lay the foundations of new aesthetic approaches in which different cultural heritages can synergically enhance each other. The result is a fuller, richer, and more complex optic—a humble repositioning of the human gaze pervaded by a kind of awe and wonder that western science had for too long sidelined.

For more information: https://www.microcosmssacredplants.org/

Image:
Brugmansia x candida f. culebra

CFP: The Agency of Plants in the Literature and the Arts of the French- and English-Speaking Worlds (19th c. – 21st c.)

Université Paris Cité, LARCA & Catholic University of Paris

15-16 June 2023

Deadline for proposals: 15 March 2023

The advent of the ‘plant turn’ (Myers 40) within science, philosophy and environmental humanities has challenged the anthropocentric and zoocentric view of plants as inert, passive objects deprived of senses or intelligence. Biologists (Chamovitz, Mancuso and Viola), botanists (Hallé), forest rangers (Wohlleben), anthropologists (Kohn, Myers), cultural geographers (Jones and Cloke), art historians and visual culture specialists (Aloi, Castro et al., Gibson, Keetley and Tenga), literary critics (Laist), artists, writers, and philosophers (Hall, Marder, Coccia, Burgat) have all been rethinking and reimagining the relations between humans and plants.

In her recent publication entitled Foliage (Feuillages), art historian Clélia Nau draws on the Latin etymology of the active verb vegetare (to animate, enliven, grow), which does not only designate a form of ‘closed-off, idle existence,’ (Nau 16) […] as the adjective ‘vegetative’ would suggest. Following in her lead, we would like to invite contributors to rethink the agency of plants in the literature and arts of the anglophone and the francophone worlds from the nineteenth century to the present day. The aim of the conference is to reflect on the active role of plants in texts and visual representations, and think about the aesthetic, political, and epistemological implications of this form of agency. We will analyse the way in which plants act upon and with the human world from an anthrodecentric perspective. We will look at how plants can organise or disorganise our world, call into question established truths, and shape power relations, including political ones.

This conference situates itself at the heart of the interdisciplinary field of environmental humanities, and more specifically of Plants Humanities. We will rely on the pioneering ecocentric principles delineated by Lawrence Buell in The Environmental Imagination (1995) and further developed by anglophone and francophone ecocriticism in the fields of literature and art history (Braddock, Patrizio). We will also discuss the conceptual framing of the ‘nonhuman turn’ of ecology (Grusin) which started gathering pace in the 1990s (Descola; Bruno Latour and John Law’s Actor-Network Theory).

The conference welcomes contributions from researchers working in the fields of literature, history, art history, visual studies, film studies, cultural studies, philosophy, anthropology, and natural sciences. One of the goals of this conference will be to reflect on how anglophone and francophone theories approach the field of environmental and plant humanities.

Please submit abstracts of up to 300 words in English or in French, together with a short biographical note (no more than 150 words), to [email protected] by March 15, 2023.



This conference is organised by members of the ‘Environmental Humanities’ research teams of the Research Laboratory on English-Speaking Cultures (LARCA - CNRS UMR 8225) of the Université Paris Cité and of the Catholic University of Paris (research unit ‘Religion, Culture & Society’, EA 7403). The conference will take place on the Campus des Carmes of the Catholic University of Paris (74 rue de Vaugirard, 75006 Paris) on June 15th, and at the station d’écologie forestière de l’Université Paris Cité in Fontainebleau (Rte de la Tour Dénecourt, 77300 Fontainebleau) on June 16th.

Organising committee :

Laura Ouillon (Université Paris Cité)

Estelle Murail (ICP)

Delphine Louis-Dimitrov (ICP)



Puissances du végéter dans la littérature et les arts des mondes francophones et anglophones (XIXe s. – XXIe s.)

Université Paris Cité, LARCA & Institut Catholique de Paris

15-16 juin 2023

Date limite pour les propositions de communication : 15 mars 2023



Avec l’avènement dans les années 2010 du « tournant végétal » (plant turn) (Myers 40), la vision anthropocentrique et zoocentrique d’un végétal passif, objectivé, inerte, dépourvu d’intelligence et de sensibilité se voit réévaluée, voire remise en question. Biologistes (Chamovitz ; Mancuso et Viola), botanistes (Hallé), gardes-forestiers (Wohlleben), anthropologues (Kohn ; Myers), géographes culturels (Jones et Cloke), historien.ne.s de l’art et du visuel (Aloi ; Castro et al. ; Gibson ; Keetley et Tenga), critiques littéraires (Laist), artistes, écrivain.e.s et philosophes (Hall ; Marder ; Coccia ; Burgat) se proposent ainsi de repenser et réimaginer les interrelations entre humain et végétal.

À l’instar de l’historienne de l’art Clélia Nau, qui, dans son récent ouvrage Feuillages, rappelle le sens actif du latin vegetare (animer, vivifier, croître : “un végéter qui n’est pas qu’existence oisive, assourdie […], « végétative »”, Nau 16), nous invitons les participant.e.s de ce colloque à repenser les puissances du végéter dans la littérature et les arts des mondes anglophones et francophones du XIXe siècle à nos jours. Il s’agira de réfléchir à la place et au rôle actifs du végétal dans les textes et les représentations, ainsi qu’aux enjeux épistémologiques, esthétiques et politiques qui y sont liés. Suivant une perspective anthropo-décentriste, nous réfléchirons à la façon dont le végétal agit avec/sur le monde des êtres humains, l’ordonne ou le désordonne, met en question les savoirs établis, et fait intervenir des rapports de force et de pouvoir, y compris politiques.

Ce colloque s’inscrit ainsi pleinement dans le champ interdisciplinaire des humanités environnementales et plus spécifiquement des humanités végétales (Plant Humanities). On pourra utilement prendre appui sur les principes écocentriques définis par Lawrence Buell dans The Environmental Imagination (1995) et prolongés depuis par l’écocritique anglophone et francophone, à la fois en littérature et en histoire de l’art (Braddock ; Patrizio), mais aussi, par exemple, discuter des cadres conceptuels du « tournant non-humain » (nonhuman turn, Grusin) de l’écologie développés à partir des années 1990 (Descola ; théorie de l’acteur-réseau – Actor-Network Theory – élaborée, entre autres, par Bruno Latour et John Law).

Le colloque est ouvert aux chercheurs travaillant dans les champs de la littérature, de l’histoire et de l’histoire de l’art, des études visuelles, filmiques et culturelles, mais aussi de la philosophie, de l’anthropologie et des sciences naturelles. Un des enjeux de ces journées sera notamment de confronter les approches francophones et anglophones des humanités végétales et environnementales.

Les propositions de communication (300 mots max.), en français ou en anglais, accompagnées d’une brève biographie, sont à envoyer à [email protected] avant le 15 mars 2023.

Ce colloque est organisé par des membres de l’équipe « Humanités et questions environnementales » de l’Unité de Recherche « Religion, Culture et Société » (EA 7403) de l’Institut Catholique de Paris et par la traverse « Humanités environnementales » du LARCA (CNRS UMR 8225) de l’Université Paris Cité. Les journées d’études auront lieu le 15 juin sur le Campus des Carmes de l’Institut Catholique de Paris (74 rue de Vaugirard, 75006 Paris), et le 16 juin à la station d’écologie forestière de l’Université Paris Cité à Fontainebleau (Rte de la Tour Dénecourt, 77300 Fontainebleau).



Comité d'organisation :

Laura Ouillon (Université Paris Cité)

Estelle Murail (ICP)

Delphine Louis-Dimitrov (ICP)



Bibliographie / Bibliography:

ALOI, Giovanni, ed. Botanical Speculations: Plants in Contemporary Art. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018.

ALOI, Giovanni, ed. Why Look at Plants? The Botanical Emergence in Contemporary Art. Leiden: Brill, 2019.

BRADDOCK, Alan C., and Christoph IRMSCHER, ed. A Keener Perception: Ecocritical Studies in American Art History. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2009.

BURGAT, Florence. Qu’est-ce qu’une plante ? Essai sur la vie végétale. Paris: Seuil, 2020.

CASTRO, Teresa, Perig PITROU, and Marie REBECCHI, ed. Puissance du végétal et du cinéma animiste. La Vitalité révélée par la technique. Dijon: Les Presses du réel, 2020.

CHAMOVITZ, Daniel. What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012.

COCCIA, Emanuele. La Vie des plantes: une métaphysique du mélange. Paris: Payot & Rivages, 2016.

DESCOLA, Philippe. Par-delà nature et culture. Paris: Gallimard, 2005.

GIBSON, Prudence. The Plant Contract: Art’s Return to Vegetal Life. Leiden: Brill, 2018.

GIBSON, Prudence, and BRITS Baylee, ed. Covert Plants: Vegetal Consciousness and Agency in an Anthropocentric World. Santa Barbara: Punctum Books, 2018.

GRUSIN, Richard. The Nonhuman Turn. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015.

HALL, Matthew. Plants as Persons: A Philosophical Botany. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2011.

JONES, Owain, and Paul J. CLOKE. Tree Cultures: The Place of Trees and Trees in Their Place. Oxford: Berg, 2002.

KEETLEY, Dawn, and Angela TENGA, ed. Plant Horror: Approaches to the Monstrous Vegetal in Fiction and Film. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

KOHN, Eduardo. How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013.

LAIST, Randy, ed. Plants and Literature: Essays in Critical Plant Studies. Leiden: Brill, 2013.

MABEY, Richard. The Cabaret of Plants: Botany and the Imagination. London: Profile Books, 2016.

MANCUSO, Stefano, and Alessandra VIOLA. Brilliant Green: The Surprising History and Science of Plant Intelligence. Washington: Island Press, 2015.

MARDER, Michael. Plant-Thinking: A Philosophy of Vegetal Life. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013.

MARDER, Michael, and Mathilde ROUSSEL. The Philosopher’s Plant: An Intellectual Herbarium. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014.

MYERS, Natasha. « Conversations on Plant Sensing: Notes from the Field ». NatureCulture 3 (2015): 35-66.

NAU, Clélia. Feuillages. L’Art et les puissances du végétal. Paris: Hazan, 2021.

PATRIZIO, Andrew. The Ecological Eye: Assembling an Ecocritical Art History. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018.

VIEIRA, Patrícia, Monica GAGLIANO, and John Charles RYAN, ed. The Green Thread: Dialogues with the Vegetal World. London: Lexington Books, 2015.

ZHONG MENGUAL, Estelle. Apprendre à voir. Le Point de vue du vivant. Arles: Actes Sud, 2021.