The Vegetal Turn: History, Concepts, Applications

This book charts the multidimensional course of what has come to be known as the “Vegetal Turn” in environmental humanities – a wave of theoretical and practical interest in the complexities and peculiarities of plant life and plant-human relations. The Vegetal turn consists of increasingly sophisticated, inter- and trans-disciplinary, inter- and trans-cultural explorations of the multiple systems and networks of communication, intelligence, technical-operational capabilities, and relations articulated by and via plants – as well as the ethical, economic, cultural, and political dimensions of plant-human interactions and practices. The volume includes contributions from philosophy and the humanities more generally that explore and reflect on the history, prospects, and applications of four main themes that the Vegetal Turn has brought to general attention: the mind of plants, and what their peculiar mentality can tell us about mind more generally; plant personhood and/or moral standing, and the justifications and implications of attributions thereof; plant relationships with humans, plant-based human relationships, and the ethics of human practices with or regarding plants – from agriculture to the arts, from forest management to urban design ; as well as the rights and/or political representation of plant life and the other life-forms that depend on it, human as well as non-human, present and future.