Dr. Molly Wallace is an Associate Professor and the Graduate Chair in the Department of English Language and Literature at Queen’s. Her research interests lie in contemporary literature, eco-criticism, and eco-cultural studies. Dr. Wallace has published extensively on these topics, including her most recent book, Risk Criticism: Precautionary Reading in an Age of Environmental Uncertainty.

David Carruthers is a PhD candidate in the Department of English Language and Literature at Queen's where he studies the environmental humanities, particularly ‘dark ecology’ and eco-phenomenology. His doctoral research looks at eco-phenomenological, plant-human intersections as represented in post-Cold War literature and their relationship to understandings of ecological crisis. Carruthers co-edited a book with Dr. Wallace entitled, Perma/Culture: Imagining Alternatives in an Age of Crisis.

In this episode, Dr. Wallace and Carruthers discuss dark ecology and eco-phenomenology as concepts that situate ecology and the environment at the centre of thinking about the complex relationship between human and plant actors. While Dr. Wallace explains that her research examines how we understand living in a state of mega-risks, such as climate change and nuclear threat, related to the environment.

Please visit the Department of English Language and Literature for more information about their research projects.