Greenhouse Environmental Humanities Book Talks

Hosted by Dolly Jørgensen & Finn Arne Jørgensen

The Greenhouse Environmental Humanities Book Talk has become the go-to resource for the latest in environmental humanities scholarship. Each episode features an author discussing their new book (within the last two years) in the broad field of environmental humanities, which includes environmental history, philosophy, literary criticism, anthropology, and more. The author introduces the book and then the hosts Dolly and Finn Arne Jørgensen have a conversation with the author about the book. Live audience members are also invited to ask their own questions. Live talks are sometimes streamed with video, so some speakers may reference things that the audience saw visually during the talk. The talks are organized by the Greenhouse Center for Environmental Humanities at the University of Stavanger, Norway.

  1. Bob McKay – Anthropofugal Fictions

    May 11

    Bob McKay – Anthropofugal Fictions

    Robert (Bob) McKay, Professor of Contemporary Literature at University of Sheffield (UK), discussed his book Anthropofugal Fictions: Literature, Species Politics and Flight from Humanity (Edinburgh University Press, 2026) in the Greenhouse environmental humanities book talk series on Monday, 11 May 2026. This book traces a radical politics of species across the work of four significant Anglophone authors of the late twentieth century: Brigid Brophy, Alice Walker, J.M. Coetzee and David Foster Wallace. Presenting an exciting and original perspective, Robert McKay argues that these literary figures tell anthropofugal stories, in which a tendency towards animals coincides with a desire to flee from humanity. Their writing disavows allegiance to humanity’s various guises and ideals, dismissing human distinctiveness and disturbing human privilege to reimagine life with so-called animals. While deeply grounded in the practice of literary close reading, Anthropofugal Fictions is also a work of philosophy and theory that shows how doubts about species identity lie at the heart of live debates about gender, sexuality, race and ethics. It is a challenging and provocative account of what it means not to be human, and of living amongst animals without species difference as a legitimation of one’s actions.

    57 min
  2. Mary Mendoza – Deadly Divide

    May 4

    Mary Mendoza – Deadly Divide

    Mary Mendoza, assistant professor of history at Penn State University (USA), discussed her book Deadly Divide: How Insects, Pathogens, and People Defied the US-Mexico Border (University of North Carolina Press, 2026) in the Greeenhouse environmental humanities book talk series on Monday, 4 May 2026. When most people picture the US-Mexico border, they think of walls, fences, concrete, and wire. But in this first history of how the environment influenced physical boundary-making between the two nations, Mary E. Mendoza focuses on how the natural world shaped ideas about race, gender, and security. In so doing, she unearths surprising origins of the modern-day immigration debate. Mexican migrants have historically been seen by some in the US as invasive and less than human. But actual invasive pests are part of this story. Deadly Divide shows how cattle ticks, the body louse, foot-and-mouth disease, and the female Mexican fruit fly contributed to the to the ever-increasing racialization of Mexican migrants, which in turn led to increased policing, criminalization, and fears about immigrants infiltrating the US. As Mendoza follows the stories of migrants in relation to various species, Indigenous peoples, and officials on both sides of the border, she argues that the need for mobility overpowered both governments’ laws, fences, and agents. At the same time, the border’s symbolic power became a source of terror not only for migrants who try to cross into the US but for those who feel they cannot cross back, making the US a nation that suspends immigrants between two worlds.

    54 min
  3. John Scanlan – The Idea of Waste

    Apr 27

    John Scanlan – The Idea of Waste

    John Scanlan, Research Fellow in Place Development & Promotion at University of Lancashire (UK), discussed his book The Idea of Waste: On the Limits of Human Life (Reaktion Books, 2025) in the Greenhouse environmental humanities book talk series on Monday, 27 April 2026. The Idea of Waste starts with the premise that waste is inevitable in human society. It explores how we have grappled with both the material reality and the spectre of this shape-shifting phenomenon throughout history – utilizing it, dreaming of overcoming it, yet never escaping it. John Scanlan investigates what waste is and why it seems to be intrinsic to human life, at every turn, in every age and epoch. He demonstrates how waste never disappears completely but rather only proliferates anew. The compelling narrative shows waste to be both an enduring material consequence of human activity and an idea or state of being.

    55 min
  4. Michelle Henning – A Dirty History of Photography

    Apr 13

    Michelle Henning – A Dirty History of Photography

    Michelle Henning, Professor in Photography and Media at the University of Liverpool (UK), discussed her book A Dirty History of Photography: Chemistry, Fog, and Empire (University of Chicago Press, 2025) in the Greenhouse environmental humanities book talk series on Monday, 13 April 2026. Dependent on the extractive practices of fossil-fueled industrial capitalism, chemical photography’s emulsions and films were highly sensitive to polluted atmospheres, and photographic companies had to work hard to control this sensitivity. Drawing on histories of empire, coal, and chemistry and from the archives of British photographic manufacturer Ilford Limited, Michelle Henning exposes the ways photography shaped how we see and understand the atmosphere while leaving its toxic residues in the air, soil, and water. Structured as thirty-six short chapters and with over seventy illustrations, this innovative book begins in interwar London, follows the supply of Ilford products to photographers on the West African coast, and considers photography as a military technology linked to the development of chemical warfare. Combining close readings of photographs with discussions of low-light, tropical, and aerial photography, Henning examines the extraction and development of photographic materials, their role in the current environmental crisis, and how they have shaped experiences of time and the environment.

    57 min
  5. Brycchan Carey - The Unnatural Trade

    Mar 23

    Brycchan Carey - The Unnatural Trade

    Brycchan Carey, Professor of Literature, Culture, and History at Northumbria University (UK), discussed his book The Unnatural Trade: Slavery, Abolition, and Environmental Writing, 1650-1807 (Yale University Press, 2024) in the Greenhouse environmental humanities book talk series on Monday, 23 March 2025 . How did late eighteenth-century British abolitionists come to view the slave trade and British colonial slavery as unnatural, a “dread perversion” of nature? Focusing on slavery in the Americas, and the Caribbean in particular, alongside travelers’ accounts of West Africa, Brycchan Carey shows that before the mid-eighteenth century, natural histories were a primary source of information about slavery for British and colonial readers. These natural histories were often ambivalent toward slavery, but they increasingly adopted a proslavery stance to accommodate the needs of planters by representing slavery as a “natural” phenomenon. From the mid-eighteenth century, abolitionists adapted the natural history form to their own writings, and many naturalists became associated with the antislavery movement.   Carey draws on descriptions of slavery and the slave trade created by naturalists and other travelers with an interest in natural history, including Richard Ligon, Hans Sloane, Griffith Hughes, Samuel Martin, and James Grainger. These environmental writings were used by abolitionists such as Anthony Benezet, James Ramsay, Thomas Clarkson, and Olaudah Equiano to build a compelling case that slavery was unnatural, a case that was popularized by abolitionist poets such as Thomas Day, Edward Rushton, Hannah More, and William Cowper.

    59 min
  6. Josephine Taylor - The Nonhuman Narratives of Energy

    Mar 16

    Josephine Taylor - The Nonhuman Narratives of Energy

    Josephine Taylor, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at University College Dublin (Ireland), discussed her book The Nonhuman Narratives of Energy: Multispecies Encounters in Extraction Zones (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025) in the Greenhouse environmental humanities book talk series on Monday, 16 March 2026. This book brings the emerging field of petrocultures and energy humanities discourse into conversation with the field of animal studies. Taylor examines how fossil fuels have frequently been described as the lifeblood of capitalist modernity, making petroleum appear as something intrinsic to human life. Through examining works such as Herman Melville's Moby Dick, Nnedi Okorafor’s Lagoon and Michel Faber’s Under the Skin, this book highlights the commodification of nonhuman life in the history of energy and, paradoxically, how these nonhuman actors have been unacknowledged and silenced through time.

    56 min
  7. K. G. Hutchins - A Song for the Horses

    Feb 16

    K. G. Hutchins - A Song for the Horses

    Kip Hutchins, visiting assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at Oberlin College (USA), discussed his book A Song for the Horses: Musical Heritage for More-than-Human Futures in Mongolia (University of Arizona Press, 2025) in the Greenhouse environmental humanities book talk series on Monday, 16 February 2026. As permafrost in Siberia continues to melt and the steppe in the Gobi turns to desert, people in Mongolia are faced with overlapping climate crises. Some nomadic herders describe climate change as the end of a world. They are quick to add that the world has ended before for Indigenous people in North Asia, as waves of colonialism have left the steppe with a complicated web of apocalypses. A Song for the Horses by K. G. Hutchins examines cases in which people respond to the pressures of climate change by drawing on cultural heritage to foster social resiliency.  Hutchins’s ethnographic research, spanning more than a decade, provides a vivid and intimate portrayal of Mongolian life. Musicians use the morin khuur, or ‘horse fiddle,’ to engage with the subjectivities and agencies of nonhuman animals and other beings. This work is a significant contribution to the posthuman turn in social sciences, engaging with theories from prominent scholars such as Donna Haraway and Anna Tsing.  As climate change continues to impact communities worldwide, this book offers a unique perspective on how cultural heritage can be mobilized to address environmental challenges, providing valuable lessons for global efforts to build sustainable and resilient futures. At the intersection of music, environment, and posthumanism, A Song for the Horses shows how Mongolian musicians use cultural traditions to imagine and build toward alternative futures beyond climate change and neoliberalism.

    57 min
  8. Christopher Jones - The Invention of Infinite Growth

    Feb 2

    Christopher Jones - The Invention of Infinite Growth

    Christopher Jones, associate professor of history at Arizona State University (USA), discussed his book The Invention of Infinite Growth: How Economists Came to Believe a Dangerous Delusion (University of Chicago Press, 2025) in the Greenhouse environmental humanities book talk series on Monday, 2 February 2026. Most economists believe that growth is the surest path to better lives. This has proven to be one of humanity’s most powerful and dangerous ideas. It shapes policy across the globe, but it fatally undermines the natural ecosystems necessary to sustain human life. How did we get here? In The Invention of Infinite Growth, environmental historian Christopher F. Jones takes us through two hundred and fifty years of economic thinking to examine the ideal of growth, its powerful influence, and the crippling burdens many decisions made in its name have placed on us all. Jones argues that the pursuit of growth has never reflected its costs, because economists downplay environmental degradation. What’s worse, skyrocketing inequality and diminishing improvements in most people’s well-being mean growth too often delivers too little for too many. Jones urges economists to engage more broadly with other ways of thinking, as well as with citizens and governments to recognize and slow infinite growth’s impact on the real world.  Both accessible and eye-opening, The Invention of Infinite Growth offers hope for the future. Humans have not always believed that economic growth could or should continue, and so it is possible for us to change course. We can still create new ideas about how to promote environmental sustainability, human welfare, and even responsible growth, without killing the planet and ourselves.

    56 min
See All (198)

About

The Greenhouse Environmental Humanities Book Talk has become the go-to resource for the latest in environmental humanities scholarship. Each episode features an author discussing their new book (within the last two years) in the broad field of environmental humanities, which includes environmental history, philosophy, literary criticism, anthropology, and more. The author introduces the book and then the hosts Dolly and Finn Arne Jørgensen have a conversation with the author about the book. Live audience members are also invited to ask their own questions. Live talks are sometimes streamed with video, so some speakers may reference things that the audience saw visually during the talk. The talks are organized by the Greenhouse Center for Environmental Humanities at the University of Stavanger, Norway.

Information

You Might Also Like