Beyond the “Murder Hornet” Panic
Remember murder hornets? Samuel Klee tells their story a different way—with less panic and more attention to settler-colonial plantation ecologies.
Tagged: American Studies
Financing American Inequality: A Conversation with Paige Glotzer
Historian Paige Glotzer discusses the segregated suburbs and what the history of Baltimore’s Roland Park Company has to do with today’s inequality.
Plant Monsters Turn Normal Upside Down
Julia Dauer argues that the plant monsters from the Netflix series Stranger Things share roots with 18th-century colonial terror of botanical powers. Unruly vegetation from the Upside Down calls for a wholesale reevaluation of normal in the contemporary US.
Whose Utopia? American Ecofascism Since the 1880s
A 19th-century novel about a (white) women’s utopia at the center of the earth documents the long history of American eugenics and ecofascism.
The Environmental Histories of Desire
Greta LaFleur’s new book, The Natural History of Sexuality in Early America, shows how desire was produced in surprising ways alongside taxonomies of plants and racial difference in early British colonial texts.
Earth First! and the Ethics of American Environmentalism
Why were American radical environmental movements able to gain political and philosophical ground in the second half of the 20th century? Keith Woodhouse looks at this question through the history of Earth First! and its legacy today.
Seeds as Time Capsules
When Courtney Fullilove looks inside a seed, she sees Mennonite farmers, Comanche agriculture, and Echinacea patents. Her new book, “The Profit of the Earth,” shows that the genes of a seed can narrate the history of American empire.
Excavating the Private Sphere
A photo essay of mid-century domestic relics open a window on a woman’s hard, heroic, uncelebrated life.
From White Privilege to White Supremacy: An Illustrated Interview with Laura Pulido
Pursuing environmental justice requires recognizing the varied forms of racism.
Bicycling Renaissance: a Bike Boom of Old (With Lessons for the New)
An interview with Dr. Evan Friss about the 1890s bicycling revolution in the United States.
