In the Weeds

In our fourth episode on the forest in fiction, I speak to Philip Weinstein, Professor Emeritus of Swarthmore College and author of numerous books on fiction, including What Else But Love? The Ordeal of Race in Faulkner and Morrison , about the forest and the natural world in Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved . In this gripping story by the Nobel-prize winning author, the forest plays numerous roles,...

In our third episode on the forests of the Western imagination, I discuss A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Randall Martin, Professor of English at the University of New Brunswick and author of Shakespeare & Ecology .  Associated with the night, with dreams, the imagination, madness, and the theater itself, the forest of A Midsummer Night’s Dream - inhabited by fairies who delight in playing pran...

In the second episode of our series on the forest in fiction, Ellen Handler Spitz - a renowned specialist of psychology and the arts and senior lecturer in the Humaninties program at Yale - and I discuss Sondheim and Lapine’s musical, Into the Woods .  Into the Woods brings together characters and story lines from several well-known fairy tales, drawing particularly on the Brothers Grimm’s version...

If you hear a story that begins “in a dark wood,” you’re instantly transported to a place of fear, of danger and disorientation. Where does this come from? One important, early source is Dante’s Inferno . In the first of our series on fictional forests, Peter Olson and I discuss the two principal forests of the Inferno , the “dark wood” of the opening, where the pilgrim is lost, and the “brooding...

Whenever we enter a fictional forest - whether in a film, a novel or a fairy tale - we know we’re bound for a story of adventure, possibly of danger, magic or transformation.  In the next few episodes of In the Weeds , we’ll be exploring works of fiction in which the forest plays a key role. Underlying our discussions will be some broader questions: why is the forest such an evocative place in our...

Two friends - Margaret Ables, co-host of the podcast What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood , and Sonia Fujimori, educator and former coordinator of the edible garden at our children’s elementary school - join me in conversation with educator and anthropologist of education Lorie Hammond to discuss her new book, Growing Whole Children in the Garden . For more information see https://i...

Geologist Marcia Bjornerud gives us primer in “reading rocks.” We start by discussing where the “stuff” of our solar system comes from - you’ll be amazed by the origins of water on Earth, for example - and then delve into the different rock types, igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic. Bjornerud explains the “grammar” of these different rock types and gives us tips for what to look for as well as r...

There are two things about Christmas that you can count on, says historian and author Judith Flanders: most of the origin stories you’ve heard are false and people have always thought ‘Christmas was better in the old days.’ Though it may not be true that Santa’s red suit came from Coca Cola, nor that Prince Albert brought the Christmas tree to Britain, the history of Christmas that Flanders relate...

Since the 1990s, we’ve been seeing the same kind of commercials: sweeping vistas of the American wilderness, forests and clear streams, rocky ledges, perhaps a dusting of snow. And, cutting through the landscape, a jeep or an SUV. No other cars in sight.  Such a vision would seem to be fraught with contractions. For starters, this is not how most of us experience driving. Where we experience roads...

When my daughter was eight years old, she came home one day and announced that she "knew what the B word was." But she was confused: why was a word for a female dog - the most awesome of creatures, in her mind - also an insult for girls and women?  Interesting, I thought. What did this insult say about our relationship to animals, to dogs specifically, and about the gendering of that rel...

How fragile is our economy? Can it rebound from the impact of the shutdown and - similarly - from stresses climate change might inflict in the future? These are some of the questions I’ve found myself asking during the Covid pandemic.  Looming over all of these was a broader and more troubling question: were the success of our economy and the future health of our planet somehow at odds? Following...

After a long hiatus, In the Weeds picks up where we left off with a third installment of our series on the apocalyptic! From parasitic wasps to zombie ants and the hive mind, Joe Wallace’s novel Invasive Species takes strange natural phenomena and spins them into an apocalyptic yarn, in which a new, emergent predator threatens the human species. This is an unusual take on the apocalyptic genre I e...

In the fourth and last of my "socially distanced with" episodes, I touch base with Amy Hall, VP of Social Consciousness for the clothing brand Eileen Fisher with whom I discussed "the hidden cost of clothes" in episode 14. The clothing industry is among those being hit hard by the pandemic. Amy and I speculate about the long-term effects this may have and the ways in which it m...

In the third of my “socially distanced” episodes - shorter episodes in which I touch base with former guests to see what they are up to during the quarantine - I talk to violin maker Brian Skarstad. He tells me about some of the advantages of socially distancing for him, such as taking on projects he normally doesn’t have the time for, as well as the challenges. Together, we reflect on the way thi...

In the second episode of my series on the apocalyptic, I talk to Brian Francis Slattery about his novel Lost Everything , which won the 2012 Philip K. Dick award.  The novel follows two friends on a mission up the Susquehanna River, in an apocalyptic not-too-distant future, in which climate change and civil war have transformed the Northeast of the United States into a tropical wasteland, replete...

In the second of my “socially distanced” episodes, I talk to geologist Marcia Bjornerud at her home in Wisconsin, who says that the coronavirus pandemic is a reminder that, throughout all of geologic time, microbes have been in charge. We talk about viruses, what odd entities they are, the curious role they have played in evolution, and we muse over the possible long-term effects of the dramatic c...

In a series of short episodes, I check in with previous guests to see what they are up to under stay-at-home orders and to find out what they have to say about the pandemic.  In the first of these "socially distanced" chats, I talk to entomologist Doug Tallamy who tells us that the biologists saw this coming due to the problems of overpopulation and crowding in cities. Look at what happe...

The word “apocalyptic” pops up in conversation a lot these days, at a time when fiction and reality seem to be blurring. In the first episode of a series on the apocalyptic and what it reveals about how we feel about what’s happening to the natural world, I talk to the world-renowned theologian Bernard McGinn about the origins of the “apocalyptic imagination” and how fundamental it is both to Chri...

Gardening and observing the natural world may offer us solace during this time of worry and confinement. So I bring you my latest interview with entomologist Doug Tallamy, who has been teaching many of us about the need to garden with native plants in order to feed insects, especially pollinators, and preserve all of the "ecosystem services" that we humans, along with other animals, need...

Nick Kaplinsky, Chair of Biology at Swarthmore College, and I discuss Nina Fedoroff's book Mendel in the Kitchen , on the genetic modification of food, going back the earliest domestication of crops such as wheat and corn, to foods currently labeled as “GMOs.” Kaplinsky surprises me with the statement that opposition to GMOs on the left ressembles climate change denial on the right. What is a...

How do baby birds learn their songs? Why does a female bird want a mate who knows his neighborhood songs? What impact does bird migration have on the 9/11 memorial “Tribute in Light”? These are some of the many fascinating issues that come up in my discussion with Alan Clark of Fordham University, a biologist and expert in bird vocalizations, whose career was inspired by the experience of falling...

We go down the rabbit hole of how clothes are made and contemplate the hidden social and environmental costs of fashion with Amy Hall, VP of Social Consciousness for the fashion brand Eileen Fisher, as our guide. When you return to the surface, you're likely to look at your clothes in a whole new way! More more info go to in-the-weeds.net

Listen to some giggly girls tell about the camp where they took old clothes, cut, patched and sewed them into new ones, flippy, sparkly....OMG.  A little morsel of podcast to tide you over while I'm busy tending to our new puppy Coco and juggling kids and the general slobber of family life.  Coming up... my interview with Amy Hall, VP of Social Consciousness for Eileen Fisher on fashion and t...

In “Laudato si,” known as the Encyclical on the Environment, Pope Francis presents an “urgent challenge” to protect our “common home,” the Earth. I discuss this letter addressed not just to Catholics but to all people, with Christiana Zenner, Associate Professor of Theology, Science and Ethics in the Department of Theology at Fordham University. We talk about Pope Francis’ folding together of his...

Using heat-sensitive cameras and radio collars, Gotham Coyote Project tracks coyotes, as they make a life for themselves in the Bronx, in parks and a golf course and, occasionally, show up in Central Park or trotting along the West Side Highway. This amazingly resilient animal challenges our understanding where “nature” resides and gives us a blueprint for how we might welcome wilderness into our...