Thinking with Plants & Fungi Initiative
Thinking with Plants and Fungi Initiative
A 2024–2025 program
An interdisciplinary exploration into how plants and fungi help us rethink the nature of mind and matter and humans’ relationship to the more-than-human world.
About
“Thinking with Plants and Fungi” initiative explored how inquiry into plant and fungal life illuminates the nature of mind and matter, and humans’ relationship to the more-than-human world. We engage fundamental questions from academic scholarship and traditional wisdom, including: what is intelligence, where does it extend, and how? What is matter, and what does it mean to label it animate or inanimate? How can we broaden practices of care to include other forms of life? How does the study of plants enrich or complicate our understanding of humans’ place relative to other beings?
The imitative sought to enhance interdisciplinary cooperation between biology, ecology, and the humanities, nurturing current and future leaders in plant studies. Through scholarship and public outreach, we aimed to demonstrate how nature's intelligence can inspire new models of cooperation, flourishing, and coexistence amid ongoing crises.
Our offerings
Conference
In May 2025, the CSWR hosted a three-day conference that convened scholars from across the sciences, humanities, and social sciences with artists, culture keepers, activists, and practitioners to explore questions central to the Thinking with Plants and Fungi Initiative.
Watch the conference proceedings and learn more.
Reflections and Interviews
The initiative published a series of scholarly and creative essays from authors across a range of disciplinary backgrounds and career stages, as well as reflections from practitioners and artists.
Read all reflections on the Thinking with Plants and Fungi blog.
Previous Events
The initiative hosted several guest speakers as well as student field trips, including a trip to British Columbia together with partner Awi'nakola Foundation.
Visit our previous events page to watch recordings of past events and learn more.
Reading Group
The initiative convened a reading group from 2022-2025 exploring themes in science, religion, philosophy, and Indigenous ways of knowing.
We have made our syllabus available for other groups interested in designing curricula on these themes.
Edited Volume
Building on the 2025 conference and years of interdisciplinary collaboration, the CSWR published an edited volume, titled “Thinking with Plants and Fungi." Thinking with Plants and Fungi brings together leading voices from science, the humanities, and the arts to explore how vegetal and fungal life challenge dominant models of consciousness, community, and ecological care. The volume examines the entanglements of mind and matter, nature and culture, human and more-than-human. Essays investigate topics including plant neurobiology, philosophy, decolonial botany, fungal ethics, and the poetics of sessility. Featuring scientists, philosophers, artists, and practitioners—including Banu Subramaniam, Michael Marder, Giuliana Furci, and Jessica J. Lee—Thinking with Plants and Fungi models a transformative form of inquiry for an age of ecological crisis..
People
Rachael Petersen — Program Lead, Thinking with Plants and Fungi Initiative (2024–2025); CSWR Student Assistant and Co-leader, Thinking with Plants and Fungi Reading Group (2022–2024)
Natalia Schwien Scott — Advisor and Program Associate, Thinking with Plants and Fungi Initiative, and Leader of the Reading Group (2024–2025); CSWR Student Assistant and Co-leader, Thinking with Plants and Fungi Reading Group (2022–2024)
Elitza Koeva — Postdoctoral Fellow, Thinking with Plants and Fungi Initiative (2024–2025)
Rusell Powell — Research and Program Specialist for the Thinking with Plants and Fungi Initiative (2024–2025)