Researchers across the University’s Faculty of Humanities will come together on 10 April 2024 for an interdisciplinary discussion on plant lives and plant thinking.

Organised by the Research Platform Creative Manchester, this ‘Research Café’, held at Contact Theatre, is the first of three exploring the significance of non-human presence and agency in theory and practice for imagining ‘Civic Futures’. The second event, Materials in Civic Futures, takes place on 24 April.

Chaired by Dr Jenna C. Ashton, ‘Plants in Civic Futures’ brings together academics working across Literature, History, Geography, and Cultural Practices, and allows for informal networking and discussion over lunch.

Dr Ingrid Hanson will discuss moss and acts of attention across boundaries of the human and non-human, the country and the city in nineteenth-century writings about moss and lichen. 

Dr Laura Pottinger will focus on material and sensory engagements with plants, touching on both previous research with seed savers to think about plants and sharing economies/ethics; and current research around colour, creative practice and noticing natures. 

Finally, Dr Anke Bernau will be talking about how particular qualities of moss – especially its ‘miniature’ size and its strange temporality – have been central to ways in which it has been both aestheticized (in literature, in popular science writing, in botany) and politicized (as standing for certain human ideals or values; as representing certain ‘naturalised’ power relations). 

• The event is free, open to all, and can be booked here.