Dr. Banu Subramaniam: Migrant Ecologies: Plant Worlds and the Afterlives of Empire
Joan S. Korenman Lecture
Location
Library and Gallery, Albin O. Kuhn : Gallery
Date & Time
October 16, 2025, 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm
Description
How have histories of colonialism and their foundational language of gender, race, sexuality, and nation shaped the language, terminology, and theories of the modern plant sciences? How and why do botanical theories remain grounded in the violence of their colonial pasts? In wrestling with these difficult origins, I develop the concept of migrant ecologies to retheorize plant migration and reproductive biology. I explore new biological frameworks that harness the power of feminist thought in order to reimagine and reinvigorate our love of plants.
Dr. Banu Subramaniam is the Luella LaMer Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Wellesley College. Trained as a plant evolutionary biologist, Banu engages the feminist studies of science in the practices of experimental biology and is author of Botany of Empire (2024), Holy Science (2019) and Ghost Stories for Darwin (2016)
Organized by the Department of Gender, Women’s, + Sexuality Studies. Cosponsored by the Center for Social Science Scholarship, the Dresher Center for the Humanities, and the Department of Geography & Environmental Systems.
This event is open for full participation by all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or any other protected category under applicable federal law, state law, and the University's nondiscrimination policy.
