In the Weeds
In the weeds explores how culture shapes our relationship to the natural world through interviews with a wide range of guests, from scientists to artists to cultural critics and theologians.
- Update frequency
- every 19 days
- Average duration
- 39 minutes
- Episodes
- 64
- Years Active
- 2019 - 2025
Horse Travel and Horse Warfare: A Conversation with Historian Gary Shaw
We’re back! After a long hiatus due to professional/ life stuff, I’m happy to share with you my interview with Gary Shaw, Professor of History and Medieval Studies at Wesleyan University. Continuing …
Dinosaurs with Lydia Millet
The title of Lydia Millet’s last novel - Dinosaurs - seems to wink at the threat of human extinction, and, yet, its explicit referent in the book is to birds, those sometimes-alien creatures who surv…
David Abram's The Spell of the Sensuous with Trevien Stanger, Part 2
A continuation of my earlier episode in which Trevien Stanger - instructor of environmental studies at St. Michael's College in Vermont - and I discuss Abram's book, which, I think it's fair to say, …
Study of a Liminal Corridor with Michael Inglis
There’s a funny little corridor tucked away behind a park in the Village of Pleasantville, New York where I live, where bears and bobcats amble through, walking atop the Catskill Aqueduct, the 100-ye…
William Taylor on the Domestication of Horses
When we think of major innovations in human history, what comes to mind are inert technologies - from the wheel to the computer - but one of the most significant developments occurred as the result o…
Maddie
Jennifer Lynch Fitzgerald tells the story of her relationship with Maddie, a mustang rescued in Habersham County, Georgia from a man who was collecting horses to sell for meat. When Maddie was found…
David Abram’s The Spell of the Sensuous with Trevien Stanger, Part 1
I’ve mentioned this book numerous times on the pod. It’s fair to say that David Abram’s The Spell of the Sensuous and Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass are the two books that really kicked of…
The Invention of the Alphabet with Johanna Drucker
“Letters have power,” Johanna Drucker tells me. But what is the nature of this power and how did it all begin? Unlike writing, the alphabet was only invented once. Somewhere in Egypt or the Sinai Pe…
William Bryant Logan on the Ancient History of Managed Woodlands
William Bryant Logan’s book Sproutlands: Tending the Endless Gift of Trees opens the door to a little known history, in which people all over the world, from Norway to Japan to pre-colonial Californi…
John Roulac on Agroforestry
Picking up where we left off in the spring, we return to the topic of farming through a conversation with John Roulac, entrepreneur and executive producer of the movie Kiss the Ground.
Roulac’s lates…
Nate Looney on Urban Farming, Jewish Ethics and Diversity Equity and Inclusion
For the second of three episodes on farming, I talk to Nate Looney about Jewish ethics, Diversity Equity and Inclusion and, yes, farming, specifically, his experience as an urban farmer using hydropo…
Filmmaker Jim Becket on The Seeds of Vandana Shiva
“When you control seed, you control life on earth,” says Indian environmental activist and scholar Vandana Shiva in the new documentary film The Seeds of Vandana Shiva. Known as “Monsanto’s worst ni…
Lydia Millet's Mermaids in Paradise
Mermaids are the fly in the ointment in Lydia Millet’s very funny satirical novel Mermaids in Paradise, “an absurdist entry into the mundane,” as she puts it. And, yet, her mermaids, who have bad tee…
So You Think You Know What a Mermaid Is...
As co-editors of The Penguin Book of Mermaids, a compendium of stories from all over the world, Marie Alohalani Brown and Cristina Bacchilega show us that mermaids are not always white, not always be…
More Real Than Real: VR and the Metaverse with Lisa Messeri
According to Mark Zuckerberg and others, the metaverse - a would-be digital double of the real world - is good for the environment, because it will make us drive less, fly less. We won’t have to visi…
Air Travel, Climate Change and Don’t Look Up with Chris Schaberg
Chris Schaberg, whom you might remember from my episode on SUV commercials, has written a number of books on air travel. I wanted to talk to him about the impact of air travel on climate change but a…
Art as Climate Action with Susannah Sayler and Ed Morris
Susannah Sayler and Ed Morris have been working at the intersection of art and climate activism for the last fifteen years. They are co-founders of the Canary Project, started in 2006 and inspired by…
On the Origins of Christmas Trees with Judith Flanders
In time for the winter solstice, we revisit our episode on the history of Christmas trees with historian Judith Flanders, author of Christmas: A Biography (2017) as well as numerous books on the Vict…
Exploring the Forest Canopy with Meg Lowman
In our continuing series on climate change, I talk to Meg Lowman who knows more about trees than most people on this planet. She invented canopy ecology - the practice of studying trees in the treeto…
Studying Climate Change at Black Rock Forest with Andy Reinmann
To find out what we know about how a warming planet will affect the forests in my home state of New York, I visit Black Rock Forest, a research station in the Hudson Highlands, and talk to Andy Reinm…