Advanced Research Centre

Thus Spoke the Plant: Book Group

ARC Public; ARCSPRING
Date: Tuesday 11 April 2023
Time: 1730 - 1900
Venue: Advanced Research Centre (The ARC)
Category: Social events
Speaker: Dr Maria Sledmere
Website: http://bit.ly/3FLWjZt

Free but ticketed via thus-spoke-the-plant.eventbrite.co.uk

This compelling story of a scientist's discovery of plant communication reveals how we "have been misunderstanding plants, and ourselves, for all of history.” In this ‘phytobiography’ - a collection of stories written in partnership with a plant - research scientist Monica Gagliano shares genuine first-hand accounts from her research into plant communication and cognition. Gagliano encourages us to rethink plants as people – as beings with subjectivity, consciousness, and volition – with the capacity for their own perspectives and voices. The book draws on up-close-and-personal encounters with the plants themselves, as well as plant shamans, indigenous elders, and mystics from around the world and integrates these experiences with an incredible research journey and the ground-breaking scientific discoveries that emerged from it.

Join Dr Maria Sledmere for the second of our Spring Fling! book groups to discuss Gagliano’s book, and how it has re-ignited the discourse on plant subjectivity and ethical and legal standing. No advanced reading required – copies of relevant passages will be provided. Light refreshments provided.
 

Dr Maria Sledmere is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Strathclyde and Tutor in English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow. She has authored over twenty books of poetry, including Cocoa and Nothing with Colin Herd (SPAM Press), Visions & Feed (HVTN Press) and The Luna Erratum (Dostoyevsky Wannabe), which was shortlisted for the Saltire Society's Scottish Poetry Book of the Year 2022. She also co-edited The Last Song: Words for Frightened Rabbit (Broken Sleep Books) with Aaron Kent and the weird folds: everyday poems from the anthropocene (Dostoyevsky Wannabe) with Rhian Williams. Maria is editor-in-chief of SPAM Press and a member of A+E Collective. Find her at mariasledmere.com.

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