Images of the Plant Humanities: Theory, Art and the Botanic Gaze

by Danielle Sands (Editor), Richard Kerridge (Editor), Daniel Whistler (Editor), Greg Garrard (Editor)

Overview

Confronting the relationship between words and images in the representation of plant life in Western modernity, this interdisciplinary book examines the ways in which plants have been theorised both in contemporary plant humanities and modern thinking about plants more generally.

Focusing on the various ways that the vegetal has been represented-or hidden-during modernity, it studies how philosophical, scientific and environmental theories, as well as colonial histories, have determined these representations, as well as the ways in which these representations have themselves influenced theory.

Situating itself within the plant-humanities, a developing field of research which draws upon the environmental humanities to rectify the traditional neglect of plants as a model for thinking, it examines aesthetic representations of plant life, and philosophical and scientific thinking about the vegetal, so as to challenge traditional assumptions regarding plant intelligence, agency and communication.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350502611
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/28/2026
Series:	Environmental Cultures
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 1.11(d)

About the Author

Danielle Sands is Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature and Culture at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK.

Richard Kerridge is a nature writer and ecocritic who leads the MA in Creative Writing and co-ordinates research and postgraduate studies in English Literature and Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, UK. His works include: Cold Blood: Adventures with Reptiles and Amphibians (2014), J. H. Prynne's place-based poem-sequence The Oval Window, in collaboration with the late N. H. Reeve (2018), Writing the Enviornment (1998) and his other nature writing has been broadcast and published in BBC Wildlife, Poetry Review and Granta. He was awarded the 2012 Roger Deakin Prize by the Society of Authors, and has twice received the BBC Wildlife Award for Nature Writing. He was founding Chair of ASLE-UKI and has been an elected member of the ASLE Executive Council. With Greg Garrard he is co-editor of the Bloomsbury Academic series 'Environmental Cultures' – the first series of monographs in the Environmental Humanities to be published in Britain and he is a member of the steering committee of New Networks for Nature.

Daniel Whistler is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Liverpool, UK and Humboldt Research Fellow at the Westfälische-Wilhelms Universität, Münster, Germany. He is author of Schelling's Theory of Symbolic Language: Forming the System of Identity (2013) and co-author of The Right to Wear Religious Symbols (2013).

Greg Garrard is Associate Professor of Sustainability at the University of British Columbia, Canada. He is the author of the bestselling book Ecocriticism (2nd edition, 2011) and editor of The Oxford Handbook of Ecocriticism (2014).

Table of Contents

Introduction: Words and Images in the Representation of Plants, Danielle Sands and Daniel Whistler
PART ONE: PLANT HI/STORIES
Chapter 1. Plant Abstraction and the Welwitschia Mirabilis: Katherine Arnold, University of Liverpool, UK
Chapter 2. Literary Botany and the Legacy of German Romanticism: Isabel Kranz, University of Vienna, Austria
Chapter 3. Lacebark and the Interior Décor of the Jamaican Slave Cottage: Steeve Buckridge, Grand Valley State University, USA
Chapter 4. On the Roots of Philosophy as a Tree of Knowledge and Using Vegetables to Think: Thomas Moynihan, University of Cambridge, UK
Chapter 5. The Transformative Power of Mama papa and Kuka kintucha: Nataly Allasi Canales, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
PART TWO: SEEING PLANTS
Chapter 6. Time-Lapse Technologies and the Temporality of Plant Life: John C. Ryan, Southern Cross University, Australia
Chapter 7. Blue So Deep: Ben Woodard, Leuphana University, Germany
Chapter 8. Margaret Mee's Plant Portraits in the Kew Collection: Yota Batsaki, Dumbarton Oaks, USA
Chapter 9. The Ecology of Plant Iconography: Laurence Hill
Chapter 10. Extending the Botanical: Danielle Sands, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
PART THREE: PLANT FORMS
Chapter 11. The Psychology of Plant Homologies: Ulrich Stegmann, University of Aberdeen, UK
Chapter 12. Goethe and the Plant-Series: Daniel Whistler, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
Chapter 13. Prototypes and Individuals: Sophie Gerber, University of Bordeaux, France
Chapter 14. Fern Times, or Vegetal Futures Past: Solvejg Nitzke, University of Dresden, Germany
Chapter 15. Algae: Joan Steigerwald, York University, Canada
PART FOUR: PLANT RELATIONS
Chapter 16. Hallucination, Sacrament, Poison: Prudence Gibson, University of New South Wales, Australia
Chapter 17. Technological Expertise in Nature and the Limits of Biomimicry: Edie Burns, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK
Chapter 18. Humboldt's Vegetal Communities: Quentin Hiernaux, Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
Chapter 19. Thinking about Sex with Plants: Natania Meeker, University of Southern California, USA
PART FIVE: PLANT MONSTERS
Chapter 20. The Human Vegetable: Stella Sandford, Kingston University, UK and author of Vegetal Sex: Philosophy of Plants.
Chapter 21. "Monstrous" Plants: Caroline Harris
Chapter 22. Abnormal Plants-Abnormal Arts: Aliya Say, University of Aarhus, Denmark
Chapter 23. Vegetal Violence: Joela Jacobs, University of Arizona, USA