UCLA Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies

09/09/2026

We’ve just released a new episode of our Story+World podcast: “What are the environmental humanities good for? A conversation with UCLA Department of English professor Ursula K. Heise": https://www.ioes.ucla.edu/lens/podcasts/

Ursula K. Heise, LENS co-founder, Distinguished Professor of English and in the UCLA Institute of the Environment & Sustainability, joins Jon Christensen, Director of LENS, to celebrate her election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences — in no small measure because of her contribution to the environmental humanities — and to consider a question that people ask sometimes in good faith and sometimes in bad faith. Heise traces the environmental humanities' emergence in the early 2000s out of environmental philosophy, environmental history, and ecocriticism, and their debts to environmental justice, posthumanism, and new materialisms. In "Imagining Extinction" (2016), Heise articulates a core claim of the environmental humanities: that biodiversity, endangered species, and extinction are primarily cultural issues. The conversation takes up the objection she hears most often from scientists — that cultural change is too slow to ameliorate the crises at hand — and explores why the humanities seek to complicate "the human."

You can find this new episode, along with all of our previous episodes, on our website at https://www.ioes.ucla.edu/lens/podcasts/, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to keep up with future Story+World episodes as they’re released, you can subscribe via Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2600570

07/27/2026

We’ve just released a new episode of our Story+World podcast “Reading The Lorax in an Age of Polarization: a conversation with food systems expert Jack Bobo": https://www.ioes.ucla.edu/lens/podcasts/

Jack Bobo (Executive Director of the UCLA Rothman Family Institute for Food Studies) joins Jon Christensen (Director of LENS) and Ursula K. Heise (LENS co-founder, UCLA English Professor) to talk about one of the most celebrated—and, Bobo argues, most revealing—works of environmental communication: Dr. Seuss’s "The Lorax." A former senior advisor for global food policy at the U.S. State Department and author of "Why Smart People Make Bad Food Choices," Bobo reads the 1971 classic through his narrative landscape framework, which identifies three coalitions in environmental and food systems discourse: innovation, sustainability, and sovereignty. The conversation traces how each group finds its own story in the book while missing everyone else’s, a dynamic Bobo calls the “coalition ceiling.” Bobo, Christensen, and Heise discuss polarization as a threat to collective action, and ask how we might communicate across fault lines rather than deepening them. Their conversation takes off from Bobo’s work-in-progress “The Lorax, Coalition Ceilings, and the Paradox of Resonance.”

You can find this new episode, along with all of our previous podcast episodes, on our website — https://www.ioes.ucla.edu/lens/podcasts/ — or wherever you get your podcasts. And to keep up with future Story+World episodes as they’re released, you can subscribe via Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2600570/episodes/19558922

06/26/2026

"Listening in on Animals," a conversation with bioacoustician Grace Miller, is the latest podcast in our series "Story+World: Changing Stories for a Changing Planet." Listen in here: https://www.ioes.ucla.edu/lens/podcasts/

A 2026 UCLA Environmental Science grad, Miller joins LENS podcast producer Liv Slaby to discuss animal vocalizations, and why humans should listen. Drawing on her fieldwork across the Colombian Amazon, the Arctic Ocean, and the mangroves of Costa Rica, Miller walks listeners through the rich and often surprising world of bioacoustics—from fish that grunt and purr to complex beluga songs. Miller supplements her own experience and expertise by interviewing Todd Brinkman (wildlife ecologist), Kate Stafford (Associate Professor, Oregon State University Marine Mammal Institute), Ben Sullender (spatial ecologist, Audubon Alaska), and Morgan Ziegenhorn (acoustic ecologist).

The conversation explores what is gained when we decenter visuality in the ways that we understand the species around us, and what is lost when anthropogenic noise drowns out more-than-human soundscapes.

05/20/2026

We are excited to share a new episode of our Story+World podcast: “The Stories We Tell About Cannabis and What They Can Tell Us About the Plant and Ourselves.”

Anthropologist and author Jeremy Narby joins Jon Christensen, director of LENS, for a book talk recorded live in the UCLA Mathias Botanical Garden. Delving into Narby’s new work, "The Book of Cannabis: The History and Future of the Plant and the Drug," the conversation traces cannabis from its role as one of the world’s first domesticated plants (used for fiber, food, oil, and medicine), to the colonial and prohibitionist narratives that recast it as a dangerous and heavily politicized substance, to our current era of patchy liberalization and legalization worldwide. Narby and Christensen discuss how cannabis can play a role as an indicator species of its environment because of its ability to hyperaccumulate environmental contaminants. Their conversation also explores the plant’s future in an era of increasing potency, regulation, and commercialization, alongside a broader inquiry into plant sentience, agency, and narratives.

You can find this new episode, along with all of our previous podcast episodes, on our website — https://www.ioes.ucla.edu/lens/podcasts/, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to keep up with future Story+World episodes as they’re released, you can subscribe via Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2600570?mc_cid=0c0b360e3a&mc_eid=4fa94fffad

04/07/2026

"Arctic Representation: Conversations with Inuit Artists" is a three-part mini-series newly out from the third season of our "LENScast" podcast. It was produced by Clara Wilch, Postdoctoral Fellow at Vanderbilt University and LENS scholar (PhD in Theater and Performance Studies, UCLA), and Spencer Robins, Professor at Saddleback College and LENS.cast lead producer (PhD in English, UCLA). Each episode features Clara in conversation with an artist in Iqaluit, Nunavut, whose work guides audiences to better understand the many-dimensional Far North and how we might confront social and environmental injustices. These conversations address the artists’ relationships to land, identity and settler colonialism, and Arctic imaginaries. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts: https://www.ioes.ucla.edu/project/lens-cast-season-3/

04/06/2026

“The Stories We Tell About Cannabis and What They Can Tell Us About the Plant and Ourselves.”

The Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies is excited to invite you to a pair of events with anthropologist Jeremy Narby.

First, there will be a conversation between LENS director Jon Christensen and Jeremy Narby on his new book "The Book of Cannabis: The history and future of the plant and drug" at DIESEL Bookstore in Santa Monica.

Thursday, April 30 at 6:30pm
DIESEL Bookstore
225 26th St., Suite 33
Santa Monica, CA 90402

RSVP for April 30 Conversation at DIESEL Bookstore: https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2026-04-30/jeremy-narby-book-cannabis-history-and-future-plant-and-drug?mc_cid=8194e1534b&mc_eid=4fa94fffad

Then the following day, please join us on the UCLA campus for a conversation and live podcast recording with Jeremy Narby titled “The Stories We Tell About Cannabis and What They Can Tell Us About the Plant and Ourselves.”

Friday, May 1 at 3:00pm
UCLA Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden
707 Tiverton Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90095

RSVP, map, and directions: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScba6W1t8Il14T6gQ_UR4YtoQCh6R_8HVFJL-ff5h_cO-2gCA/viewform

This event will take place in the outdoor amphitheater near the LaKretz Garden Pavilion at the north end of the botanical garden.

03/31/2026

The Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies, in collaboration with Global Girl Media, invites you to a special international screening of four short films about the intersection between climate change and gender-based violence, featuring stories from South Africa, Greece, and Los Angeles.

Thursday, April 23 at 7:30pm
Solotech Studios
1017 N. Las Palmas Ave.
Hollywood, CA 90038

Seating is limited, so please email [email protected] at your earliest convenience to RSVP.

03/30/2026

"Los Angeles Turns to Charter Reform to Save Its Beleaguered Park System," a story by Sophie Craypo, a graduate student researcher at LENS, at American Community Media:

In the last five years, Los Angeles has plummeted from 49th to 90th place in a national ranking of park systems in the largest 100 cities in the United States.

03/30/2026

Dear friends of LENS,

We wanted to share with you two events in April sponsored by our friends in the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment in UCLA’s School of Law. Both of them are very timely and important. And as much as they are about politics, policy, and the law, they are also very much about narrative change and the stories that we tell about the environment and ourselves.

The April 3rd symposium “Can Abundance Be Sustainable?” tackles the current debates about the “Abundance Agenda” from energy to housing and the stories we tell about the future of Los Angeles and our region.

“Smog and Sunshine: The Surprising Story of How Los Angeles Cleaned Up Its Air” on April 10 is a book talk by UCLA law professor Ann Carlson examining how the history of tackling smog in L.A. provides an important story that could help us tackle climate change.

April 3 symposium “Can Abundance Be Sustainable” — 9am–4pm
Details and link to register: https://law.ucla.edu/academics/centers/emmett-institute-climate-change-environment/can-abundance-be-sustainable-merging-affordability-and-climate-policy?mc_cid=d2fff78c07&mc_eid=UNIQID

April 10 “Smog and Sunshine” book talk with Ann Carlson — 12:15–1:30pm
Details and link to register: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeJQXQCo-9dohF5gTvD2oEfLtmRJDsd_OTJQbfmPkU7Aj6_-g/viewform?mc_cid=d2fff78c07&mc_eid=UNIQID

Yours truly,

The LENS team

03/29/2026

The Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies, in collaboration with the UCLA Department of Anthropology’s Culture, Power, and Social Change speaker series, invites you to a book talk with Max Liboiron, Professor of Geography at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

"Pollution is Colonialism"
A talk by Professor Max Liboiron
Thursday, April 9 at 12:15pm
352 Haines Hall at UCLA, and Zoom

In this book talk, Professor Liboiron will present a framework for understanding scientific research methods as practices that can align with or against colonialism. Drawing on their work in the Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR) in Newfoundland, Professor Liboiron illuminates pollution as a violent enactment of colonial land relations. By modeling an anti-colonial scientific practice aligned with Indigenous concepts of land, ethics, and relations, their research ultimately demonstrates that anti-colonial science is not only possible but is currently being practiced in ways that enact more ethical modes of being in the world.

Professor Liboiron will be presenting virtually via Zoom. Guests can either join the presentation via Zoom room or in person. Space is limited in 352 Haines Hall, so please RSVP at your earliest convenience. Lunch will be provided for all in-person attendees.

Please click here -- https://ucla.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=32eed042dbfc7300e620ad239&id=a5e0ecd242&e=0e00c8f4a1 -- or scan the QR code in the image below to RSVP for the in-person discussion or to receive a link to join via Zoom.