I’m sorry, but I can’t. Do we just live in Veep now (unbelievably great show), except that this is both page news and we’re completely ignoring the who even knows how many deaths since Trump took office? We’re doing Taylor Swift level lore now? (Yes, she hides in suitcases).

End of summer wrapping up as it usually does. Can’t believe the semester is starting so soon.

🌿🍄🌿 Finally went into the office + picked up my copy of Thinking With Plants + Fungi (and some other books). What a beautiful, colorful, joyful celebration of nature, history + science. Order your own copy + read my article on moss below (or on Amazon). 🌿🍄🌿 www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...

🌿📚🏛️ Are you nursing an #ESHS-HSS hangover from last night's cèilidh? Are you burned out from seeing everyone you know? Come to my talk about plants + collections at 9:15 in the museum this morning and I promise you can have a snooze. All are welcome! 🌿📚🏛️

Writing my talk for HSS and about to hop on a plane - this is gonna be a good one. Catch me Weds morning on the Collections Stories in Indo-Pacific Worlds symposium at the National Museum of Scotland (and the many pub nights) - can't wait to see so many friends.

Only way to get through this heat with a bored, arthritic dog: sunset swims.

Summer so far (dogs, hiking, swimming, taxidermy, slow mornings, falling in love with the world of lures).

Little Lyme warrior (we refuse to abandon our hikes + swims even though the ticks, terrible dog owners, and work loads are out of control).

(Good excuse to force myself to finish up the long overdue publications on this project)

New Haven, CT.

Ah yes, Eli Yale the parrot. Named after a slave trader, administrator (to put it lightly) in the British Empire, and the namesake of my institution. You can't make it up. Add this to my list of "I guess I'll write this when I'm done with my actual job." WTF en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elihu_Y...

I made it through the school year, but more importantly Franklin made it through the school year. He’s being treated for Lyme, but he’s a trooper who drags me on hikes / swims every morning. It’s been a hard one.

A relaxing, beautiful night before seniors' grades are due! (Actually doesn't affect my class much, but jfc)

Students going from your class on eugenics to my class on colonialism (literally)

Could not be more excited about this event at the Peabody: BOX THINGS: a rountable with @shannonmattern.bsky.social, Deborah Schneiderman, Karen Rader + Ivana Dizdar. 5/5, 5-7PM, thinking through "what if the box is not only a container of knowledge, but one of its primary analytic forms?"

🌿...and students created their own illustrations + creative work in conversation with the primary sources and secondary sources from the syllabus, writing about their processes while doing hands-on, embodied work. The results were stunning, and I'll share them with you when I receive permission.

🌿 Finally, this is the last week! Tomorrow we're talking about future paths in plant research (both in the humanities + sciences), and on Thurs we're spending a day at the botanical garden because we deserve it.

🌿 Last week: took advantage of the gorgeous weather to think through lessons from the plant + fungal world - queerness, kinship, anti-capitalism, nonhuman-centric time, dormancy, rest, resilience, symbiosis. We spent a beautiful day on the Yale Farm looking at crops, soil, fungi, and commitment. ❤️

🌿 Our final historical week on ethnobotany (esp. in the Amazon), using Richard Evans Schultes as a case study + focusing in on psychedelics. I have an article on Schultes + his legacy coming out soon, so stay tuned! Lots this semester on the thin line between plant-based medicines, drugs + poisons.

🌿 20thC plant breeding, genetic research + patenting through discussions of the military-industrial complex, using case studies from American agriculture (corn!) and the rising pharmaceutical industry (hoodia, yams, and more). This week was heavy on legal history, because it's WEIRD.

🌿 After break, a big week (that needs to be split into 2 next year). Eugenics in the American conservation movement through redwoods campaigns + ideas of "pristine" nature; attacks on "invasive" species + biological warfare amidst anti-immigration policy. This was the most popular week yet.

🌿 Last week before break: studies of evolution in plants, feat. the OGs - Charles Darwin + Joseph Dalton Hooker. Plant carnivory, movement, parasitism, strange orchids, + paleobotany. Finished with a fun class on plants in 19thC scifi through H.G. Wells, Rappacini's Daughter, and more.

🌿 Fully into the 19thC for my favorite week - the rise of imperial gardens + colonial collecting (aka my book project). Desires for "exotic" species, commercial collectors take hold, and botanical "science" struggles to define itself. Wardian cases + glass technology feature heavily.

🌿 Then into abortion history, focusing first on enslaved women's use of plants as abortifacients in the 18thC Atlantic World as forms of resistance, and then into 19thC British + American debates over emmenagogues + legal concerns around controlling women's bodies. Always a popular week.

🌿 Focused in on enslavement + plantation agriculture, bringing in questions not just of violence + monocropping but of resistance, poisons, maroon communities, and herbalism in the Caribbean. Lucky to have a grad student (Thomas Anderson) working on exactly this.

🌿 Then to the "field" to think through bioprospecting, acclimatization, illustration, and the search for drugs, often through complex interactions between colonial agents, collectors, and enslaved + Indigenous experts and healers in shifting power dynamics.

🌿 Moved into the 18thC to talk about classification, Linnaeus's sexual system, boxes + binaries, and the solidification of herbaria as taxonomic tools within a growing imperial context. Always a sleeper hit favorite, esp for students interested in sex + gender.

🌿 In our first content week, we discussed early modern anatomy + botanical entanglements, from women's wombs to materia medica + herbals. We were lucky to work with original manuscripts, books + illustrations at the Medical Historical Library from the 15th-18thC. @mazarine.bsky.social guest visit!

🌿🌴🌿 We're wrapping up the semester!! That means it's time to recap my lecture class, Botanical Bodies: Plants, Medicine + Colonialism in the History of Science. Happy to share my syllabus, which I no longer make publicly available after some plagiarism issues. Get ready for a plant 🧵:

I wrote about Nepenthes, consumption + carnivory in this book - Natural Things in Early Modern Worlds - beautifully illustrated by a couple of collaborators. DM me if you want a PDF, and stay tuned for Nepenthes in my forthcoming writing. www.routledge.com/Natural-Thin...