Plant Humanities, edited by Yota Batsaki and Anatole Tchikine, will come out from Dumbarton Oaks/Harvard University Press in August. This first publication of the Plant Humanities Initiative moves plants to the center of critical inquiry, positioning them as biocultural entities with distinct environmental and social histories.
The book’s introduction describes the key methodological and theoretical parameters of the plant humanities framework. This is followed by thirteen commissioned chapters by scholars across disciplines and covering a broad geographical range—from the Americas, Europe, and the Pacific, to the Indian subcontinent, East Asia, and Africa. Many of them explore the dual character of plants as place makers and world travelers. As ecosystem builders and cultural agents constitutive of national, sacred, and domestic ecologies, plants also help us trace legacies of colonialism and capitalism, and the related challenges of anthropogenic climate change and biodiversity loss.
Plant-focused epistemologies are central to Plant Humanities, with several essays exploring the interplay between vernacular and scientific paradigms and distinct taxonomic systems to reveal instances of rupture, continuity, and resilience.
The book concludes with an essay on the poetics of plants, exploring their foundational role in communal imaginaries and our understanding of the sacred. Collectively, the essays elevate plants as vibrant beings that have profoundly shaped our environments and cultures.
