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. Essay topics include plant neurobiology, philosophy, decolonial botany, fungal ethics, and the poetics of sessility.
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. Building on a landmark 2025 conference and years of interdisciplinary collaboration at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School, this 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.
Rachael Petersen, a PhD candidate in Germanic Languages and Literature at Harvard University, served as Program Lead for the Thinking with Plants and Fungi Initiative at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School. Natalia Schwien Scott, a PhD candidate in Religion at Harvard University, served as Advisor and Program Associate with the Thinking with Plants and Fungi Initiative at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School. Russell C. Powell is a researcher at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School and served as Research & Program Specialist for the Thinking with Plants and Fungi Initiative.
