University of Minnesota Press

What inspires desire for plants? In The Cactus Hunters, Jared Margulies takes readers through the intriguing world of succulent collecting, where collectors and conservationists alike are animated by passions that sometimes exceed the limits of the law. His globe-spanning journey offers complex insight into the fields of botany and criminology, political ecology and human geography, and psychoanalysis. Here, Margulies is joined in conversation with Samantha Walton.Jared Margulies is assistant professor of political ecology in the Department of Geography at the University of Alabama. Margulies is author of The Cactus Hunters: Desire and Extinction in the Illicit Succulent Trade.Samantha Walton is professor of modern literature at Bath Spa University in England. Walton is author of Everybody Needs Beauty: In Search of the Nature Cure and The Living World: Nan Shepherd and Environmental Thought.EPISODE REFERENCES:Nan ShepherdThe Detectorists (British comedy series)Sheffield Branch of the British Cactus and Succulent SocietyCactus and Succulent Society of AmericaJacques LacanSigmund FreudHannah DickinsonPaul KingsburyAnna SecorLucas PohlRobert Fletcher / Failing ForwardAlberto Vojtech FričLocations discussed:EnglandBrazilCzech RepublicMexicoThe Cactus Hunters: Desire and Extinction in the Illicit Succulent Trade is available from University of Minnesota Press."This book offers a powerful example of the value of close attention to the entangled lives of plants and their people."—Thom van Dooren, author of A World in a Shell: Snail Stories for a Time of Extinctions"A deeply felt and nuanced reckoning with desire as a structurally produced and world-making force—a unique and major contribution to political ecology."—Rosemary Collard, author of Animal Traffic: Lively Capital in the Global Exotic Pet Trade

“There is always some moment when other-than-human life bursts into presence amid the clamor of urban routine.” —Maan Barua, Lively CitiesOne of the fundamental dimensions of urbanization is its radical transformation of nature. The book Lively Cities: Reconfiguring Urban Ecology departs from conventions of urban studies to argue that cities are lived achievements forged by a multitude of entities, drawing attention to a suite of beings, human and nonhuman, that make up the material politics of city making. From macaques and cattle in Delhi to invasive parakeet colonies in London, author Maan Barua examines the rhythms, paths, and agency of nonhumans across the city. Barua is joined here in conversation with Sandra Jasper.Maan Barua is a university lecturer in human geography at the University of Cambridge.Sandra Jasper, a geographer and urbanist, is assistant professor of geography and gender at Humboldt University of Berlin.References:Matthew GandyTom FryGarry MarvinVinciane DespretAnindya SinhaARCH+ exhibit Cohabitation: A Manifesto for the Solidarity of Non-Humans and Humans in Urban Space (https://archplus.net/de/cohabitation-EN/)Yi-Fu TuanDeleuzeCharles EltonMarxLaura FortunatoSylvia FedericiLively Cities: Reconfiguring Urban Ecology is available from University of Minnesota Press.

Terrorism on Trial examines the contemporary role U.S. domestic courts play in the global war on terror. Author Nicole Nguyen advocates for a rethinking of popular understandings of political violence and its root causes, and exposes how dominant academic discourses, geographical imaginations, and social processes have shaped terrorism prosecutions—and disempower communities of color.Author Nicole Nguyen is joined here in conversation with Nadine Naber. This conversation was recorded in August 2023.Nicole Nguyen is associate professor of criminology, law, and justice at the University of Illinois Chicago, and is author of Terrorism on Trial: Political Violence and Abolitionist Futures;  Suspect Communities: Anti-Muslim Racism and the Domestic War on Terror; and A Curriculum of Fear: Homeland Security in U.S. Public Schools.Nadine Naber is professor in the Gender and Women’s Studies and Global Asian Studies programs at the University of Illinois Chicago. Naber is founder of Liberate Your Research Workshops.Terrorism on Trial is available from University of Minnesota Press.

In Earth, Ice, Bone, Blood, Charlotte Wrigley considers how permafrost—and its disappearance—redefines extinction to be a lack of continuity that affects both life and nonlife on earth. With a look at the coldest regions in the world, Wrigley examines the wild new economies and mitigation strategies responding to thawing permafrost, including such projects as Pleistocene Park, Colossal, and Sooam Biotech, and offers a new angle on extinction through the concept of discontinuity. Here, Wrigley is joined in conversation with Pey-Yi Chu.Charlotte Wrigley is a postdoctoral researcher at The Greenhouse – Center for Environmental Humanities at the University of Stavanger, Norway. She is author of Earth, Ice, Bone, Blood: Permafrost and Extinction in the Russian Arctic.Pey-Yi Chu is associate professor of history at Pomona College in Claremont, California. She is author of The Life of Permafrost: A History of Frozen Earth in Russian and Soviet Science. PUBLICATION REFERENCES:The Life of Permafrost / Pey-Yi ChuOnce Upon the Permafrost / Susan CrateThe Breath of the Permafrost / Nikolai Sleptsov-SylykCryopolitics / Joanna Radin and Emma Kowal, editorsPLACES REFERENCED:-Yakutsk, the capital of the Russian region of the Sakha Republic-Chersky, Arctic port in the Sakha District on the Kolyma River-Permafrost bank on the Kolyma called Duvanny Yar-Pleistocene Park in CherskyPEOPLE MENTIONED:-Sergey and Nikita Zimov, geophysicist and son behind Pleistocene Park project-George Church of Harvard University, behind the business Colossal-Hwang Woo-Suk (Sooam Biotech), biotechnology expert and veterinarian who claimed to clone human embryonic cells and does work in Yakutsk with mammoths.-Stewart Brand, environmentalist and founder of the Long Now Foundation, known for quote: “We are as gods, so we have to get good at it.”More about the book: z.umn.edu/EarthIceBoneBlood

From his first days as a rookie firefighter and emergency medical technician to his command of a company as a twenty-year veteran, Jeremy Norton has made regular, direct encounters with the sick, the dying, and the dead. In his memoir, Trauma Sponges: Dispatches from the Scarred Heart of Emergency Response, Norton documents the life of an emergency responder in Minneapolis, revealing the stark realities of humanity at its finest and its worst. Here, Norton is joined in conversation with colleagues: Captain Ricardo Anaya, Captain Shana York, and retired Captain Bridget Bender.Jeremy Norton has been a firefighter/EMT with the Minneapolis Fire Department since 2000. He was born and raised in Washington, DC, and was a high school teacher in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He taught creative writing at the Loft Literary Center before joining the MFD.Bridget Bender is a recently retired captain with the Minneapolis Fire Department.Ricardo Anaya is a captain with the Minneapolis Fire Department and has been a Minneapolis firefighter since 2015.Shana York is a longtime firefighter and captain with the Minneapolis Fire Department.Trauma Sponges is available from University of Minnesota Press."While many bear witness to injustice and decide that silence best serves their privilege, some use their privilege to dismantle the inequities that created the disparities in the first place. Jeremy Norton is the latter."—Dr. Michele Harper, author of The Beauty in Breaking"Trauma Sponges is a powerful book, by turns tender, brutal, and incisive, full of wisdom and wonder."—Sam Lipsyte, author of No One Left to Come Looking for You and The Ask"Norton is the Poet Laureate of Emergency Services, a writer whose talent and heart spark and crackle on every page, devastating and dazzling with equal measure. He sorts through the wreckage of the lives he's saved and those that were lost, presenting us with what remains: our raw humanity and, somehow, hope."—Nora McInerny, founder of the Terrible, Thanks for Asking podcast and best-selling author of Bad Vibes Only"With clarity and sensitivity, Jeremy Norton has written an eye-opening book that shows us what firefighting is often about: encountering medical emergencies more often than fires, helping strangers through the trauma of death and loss, and witnessing the ways that racism, poverty, and violence singe our society. Theirs is a particular courage that we must all celebrate."—Dr. Sunita Puri, author of That Good Night: Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour

Unfolding amid an atmosphere of profound anxiety and disillusionment, the new American war film demonstrates a breakdown of the prevailing cultural narratives that had come to characterize conflict in the previous century. In the wake of 9/11, both the nature of military conflict and the symbolic frameworks that surround it have been dramatically reshaped.  The New American War Film charts society’s shifting attitudes toward violent conflict and what is broadly considered to be its acceptable repercussions. Drawing attention to changes in gender dynamics and the focus on war’s lasting psychological effects within films such as The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty, Eye in the Sky, American Sniper, and others, author Robert Burgoyne analyzes how cinema both reflects and reveals the makeup of the national imaginary.Robert Burgoyne taught film studies for several decades at Wayne State University and at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. He is author of seven books including The New American War Film and Film Nation: Hollywood Looks at U.S. History. Kim Nelson is the Director of the Humanities Research Group and an Associate Professor at the University of Windsor in Canada. Her films have been screened internationally at film festivals and by broadcasters in Canada and the US. She is co-editor of The Routledge Companion to History and the Moving Image and author of Making History Move: Five Principles of the Historical Film.FILM REFERENCES:The Hurt Locker (2008)Saving Private Ryan (1998)Spanish–American War films of Thomas Edison’s 1898-99 seriesEye in the Sky (2015)Restrepo (2010)American Sniper (2014)Zero Dark Thirty (2012)A Private War (2018)Platoon (1986)Full Metal Jacket (1987)Born on the Fourth of July (1989)Battleship Potemkin (1925)DOCUMENTARY REFERENCES:Restrepo (2010 film)Infidel (2010 photo series)Into the Korengal (2010 photo series)Sleeping Soldiers—single screen (2009 short video, Tim Hetherington)OTHER REFERENCES:Fredric JamesonHomer/The IliadThomas Elsaesser on “productive pathology”-Robert Burgoyne's The New American War Film and Film Nation are available from University of Minnesota Press.

In Gramsci at Sea, author Sharad Chari asks how the environmental crisis of the oceans is linked to legacies of capitalism and imperialism across and within the oceans. Chari reads Antonio Gramsci as a thinker of the oceanic crisis, drawing on the philosopher’s prison notes and questions concerning waves of imperial power in the inter-war oceans of his time. Here, Chari is joined in conversation with Charne Lavery, Melissa Marschke, and Philippe Le Billon.Sharad Chari is associate professor of geography and critical theory at the University of California, Berkeley. He is author of Gramsci at Sea and Fraternal Capital.Charne Lavery is senior lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. She is author of Writing Ocean Worlds.Melissa Marschke is professor at the School of International Development and Global Studies at the University of Ottawa. She is author of Life, Fish and Mangroves.Philippe Le Billon is professor in the Department of Geography and the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia. He is author of Wars of Plunder.Persons and works referenced:-Fernando Coronil-The Many-Headed Hydra by Marcus Rediker and Peter Linebaugh-Meg Samuelson, “Thinking with Sharks,” Australian Humanities Review-Matthew Shutzer-Gavin Capps-Damien Hirst’s shark tanks-Moby Dick by Herman Melville (character of Pip)-Ellen Gallagher-Katherine McKittrick-Drexciya-John Akomfrah’s Vertigo Sea-Kamau Brathwaite’s “tidalectics”More about the book:Gramsci at Sea is available from University of Minnesota Press. An open-access edition is available to read for free online at manifold.umn.edu.

Edgar Landgraf, author of Nietzsche’s Posthumanism, joins Christian Emden and Stefan Herbrechter in a conversation about Nietzsche's reception of life sciences and reflections on technology. They critique posthumanist and transhumanist philosophies, explore Nietzsche's perspective on insects and social evolution, and discuss his engagement with the natural sciences. The podcast also delves into Nietzsche's critique of Enlightenment beliefs and the appropriation of his ideas by transhumanists.

In Noah’s Arkive, Jeffrey J. Cohen and Julian Yates examine the long history of imagining endurance against climate change catastrophe—as well as alternative ways of creating refuge. Arguing that the biblical ark may well be the worst possible exemplar of human behavior, this book uncovers the startling afterlife of the Genesis narrative and surveys the long history of dwelling with the consequences of choosing only a few to survive in order to start the world over. Here, Cohen and Yates are interviewed by Steven Swarbrick.Jeffrey J. Cohen is Dean of Humanities at Arizona State University. He is author or editor of several books, including Noah’s Arkive, Stone, Veer Ecology, and Elemental Ecocriticism.Julian Yates is H. Fletcher Brown Professor of English and Material Culture Studies at the University of Delaware. He is author or editor of several books, including Noah’s Arkive; Of Sheep, Oranges, and Yeast; and Error, Misuse, Failure.Steven Swarbrick is assistant professor of English at Baruch College, City University of New York. He is author of The Environmental Unconscious.Episode references:Bible (Genesis)Athanasius Kircher (Arca Noe)N. K. Jemisin (Emergency Skin)Jeanette Winterson (Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit)Rebecca Solnit (A Paradise Built in Hell, “disaster utopias”)Donna Haraway (A Cyborg Manifesto, The Companion Species Manifesto)Anna TsingSilo (Apple TV+ show) (with speculation spoiler alert)William de Brailes (The Flood of Noah) (image appearing in color in the book)Arks visited in this book include:Ark Encounter, Williamstown, KentuckyBiosphere 2, Pinal County, ArizonaThe Ark of Safety, Frostburg, MarylandKeywords: environmental humanities, climate change, Genesis, catastrophe, disaster utopias, artificial intelligence, ark thinking, medieval studies, monsters, giants, groundless reading, tension, contradiction, hope“The worst thing you can do, we have learned, is to imagine that you are no longer on an ark.” (from Noah’s Arkive, page 3)

As military and other forms of political violence become the planetary norm, On Posthuman War traces the expansion of war as manifest within humanity’s individual, sociocultural, and biological existence. Author Mike Hill identifies three human-focused disciplines newly turned against humanity (demography, anthropology, and neuroscience) and questions the very notion of society. This episode brings Hill into conversation with Robyn Marasco and Warren Montag.Mike Hill is professor of English at SUNY Albany. He is coauthor (with Warren Montag) of The Other Adam Smith and author of After Whiteness and On Posthuman War.Robyn Marasco teaches political theory at Hunter College and The Graduate Center, CUNY. Marasco is author of The Highway of Despair.Warren Montag is professor of English at Occidental College in Los Angeles. Montag is author of several books including Althusser and His Contemporaries.Episode references:Immanuel KantClaus von Clausewitz (On War)Counterinsurgency Field Manual (FM 3–24) of 2006The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (from University of Chicago Press)The Gates DoctrineNational Security StrategyAmerican Sniper (opening of the film)Alain BadiouTopics:US war strategy (specifically in Iraq and Afghanistan)Gender politics in the USCrisis in the humanitiesClimate changeTerms/keywords:CivilianizedDe-civilianizedIdentity infiltrationComputation“Moving through the three fields of study identified in what follows as war disciplines (demography, anthropology, and neuroscience), computational technology is key … because, like war, it is both ubiquitous and largely invisible.” (from the Preface, page xxi)