Previous Events
International Field Trip
During Spring Break 2025, the Thinking with Plants and Fungi Initiative organized an international field trip to Vancouver Island in partnership with the Āwi’nakōla Foundation. Designed to deepen participants’ understanding of Indigenous ecological knowledge, climate justice, and interspecies relations, the trip brought together students, faculty, and community leaders for a week of immersive learning. Through land-based teachings, forest walks, and visits to cultural and ecological restoration sites, participants engaged with the living relationships between people, plants, and place.
Learn more about the field trip here: Harmonizing History: A Journey Through Vancouver Island’s Indigenous Heritage.
Guest Speaker Series
Treadwell’s Book of Plant Magic: Historian Christina Oakley Harrington, a Talk by Christina Oakley-Harrington
Christina presented a talk on her book, The Treadwell's Book of Plant Magic (Treadwells, 2020/Weiser Books, 2023). This meticulously researched compendium explores the magical uses of common European plants drawn from over 200 historical texts. The book highlights the attributes that plants have been believed to possess, such as attracting love, enhancing fortune, providing protection, and even granting invisibility. Christina discussed the traditions that informed these practices, shared insights into her research and writing process, and reflected on how these ancient plant traditions resonate with contemporary magical practices. Christina is a scholar of religion and a medieval historian. She focuses on twentieth-century pagan witchcraft and the history of European herbal magic. She was on the faculty of St. Mary's University, and her monograph is titled Women in a Celtic Church: Ireland 450-1150 (Oxford University Press). In 2020, she was the centerpiece of Dr. Jonathan Hill’s study on trance practices, published in the Journal of Analytical Theology. She is the author of Treadwell's Book of Plant Magic (Weiser, 2023), Dreams of Witches (Black Letter Press, 2022), and numerous articles. She co-edited Abraxas: International Journal of Esoteric Studies (2010-2015). She manages Treadwell's Bookshop in London, a crossroads between researchers and practitioners of Western esoteric traditions.
The Other Side of the Gateway: Space Rocks as a Pantheist Limit-Case, A Talk by Professor Mary-Jane Rubenstein
If the contemplation of plants can be a “gateway drug” to pantheism, then what lies on the other side of the gateway? If we consider ferns, maples, and maitakes to be not only animate, but (inter)personal, where will we stop? Rivers? Mountains? Pebbles and stones? This presentation turns to the space industry’s current priorities as tests of these limits. Considering the alleged emptiness and inanimacy of outer space, are the industry’s lunar mining, asteroid harvesting, and Martian terraforming ethically admissible—even commendable—goals? Or are there reasons to restrain or reconfigure this “human progression” beyond Earth? Might we have to start listening to rocks? Mary-Jane Rubenstein is Dean of the Social Sciences and Professor of Religion and Science and Technology Studies at Wesleyan University addresses these questions and others during this conversation.
Goethe’s Botanical Misfits: The Fetishistic Palm, Monstrous Rose, and Competitive Barnacle, a Talk by Professor Daniel Carranza
November 13, 2024
Goethe published his essay Attempt to Explain the Metamorphosis of Plants in 1790, but throughout his long, later life he remained keenly aware of the limits of his account. This talk attends to three vegetal specimens, some physically in Goethe's collection, that postdate his famous essay in order to reflect on the contours of Goethe's botany within the history of science and religion: the Mediterranean fan palm planted in the Botanical Garden of Padua, fronds of which Goethe cut, dried, and stored in Weimar; the proliferating rose; and finally barnacles. In each of these cases, Goethe draws on non- or pre-scientific concepts — namely, the fetish, monster, and intensification (Steigerung) — in order to rethink botanical observation and scientific inquiry.
The Quest for the Plant Script, a Talk by Author Sumana Roy
October 1, 2024
Why have our writers, artists, thinkers, and scholars been compelled to turn their attention towards the ‘plant script’ in the last one hundred years? Beginning from Jagadish Chandra Bose’s “torulipi”—the handwriting of plants or the plant script through which he hoped plants would write their autobiography—and moving through Rabindranath Tagore’s songs about the language of flowers; to poets writing about the syntax of the falling of leaves to artists trying to coax a vocabulary out of plants or creating a “tree alphabet,” Sumana Roy spoke about the quest for the plant script, its codes, its compulsions, and its intimate histories.
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Planting for a Greater Community: Thinking Relationally in Horticulture Design for Both Humans and Nonhumans: Conversation with Rebecca McMackin
May 2, 2024
Gardens are more than communal spaces for recreation, they provide a vital oasis in urban environments for plant and animal species to thrive while concurrently reminding humans that even a cityscape, we're entwined with and surrounded by nature. By thinking relationally and taking the needs of our insect, bird, fungi, tree, and other nonhuman neighbors seriously, we can reshape our immediate landscapes to be more ecologically sound, biodiverse, and restorative – all while supporting joy and connection. Watch a video of the event here.
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Planta Sapiens and Human Impatience: Are we patient enough to learn how smart plants are?, A Talk by Prof. Paco Calvo
April 11, 2024
A growing body of empirical research reveals that plants exhibit cognitive capabilities traditionally attributed to animals. In this talk, Paco Calvo reflected on the current challenges faced by the field of plant signaling and behavior, including risks of underdelivering and strategies to avoid biases that may lead to overinterpreting results. Watch a video of the event here.
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The Science and Philosophy of Plant Intelligence: A Reflective Encounter with Dr. Luis Eduardo Luna
February 16, 2024
This event offered attendees the opportunity to delve into the intricacies of human and non-human interaction, guided by the insights of Dr. Luis Eduardo Luna. Read a recap of the event.
Field Trips
In the Heart of Nature: "Church of the Woods" Explores Spirituality in the Great Outdoors
May 8, 2024
This field trip aimed to provide an immersive experience where participants could directly engage with the questions posed by the initiative: exploring concepts of intelligence, matter, and the nuances of care in the natural world. Read a recap of the field trip.
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Taking a Closer Look at the Natural World with Prof. Don Pfister
April 10, 2024
As the bright colors spring up from the ground and compete for our attention, Professor Don Pfister, Asa Gray Research Professor of Systematic Botany, wants us to look elsewhere—to the complex and intertwined lives of lichen and the environment that surrounds them. Read a recap of the field trip.