The Secret Lives of Plants

An interdisciplinary seminar exploring the new science of plant intelligence alongside the colonial, racial, and ecological histories that have shaped human-plant relations. Drawing on plant biology, Indigenous knowledge systems, Black botanical legacies, critical race studies, and multispecies anthropology, the course asks what plants know, who has always known them, and what they have been made to do in the service of empire. Students purchase and maintain a living plant throughout the semester. Readings range from bench science to postcolonial theory to Caribbean literature.