The Detour: Democracy of Species

Join us on Sundays at 7:00 a.m. for episodes of The Detour, a show about people and ideas from Oregon Humanities. Listen live at 99.1 FM in the heart of Portland, or online anywhere at PRP.fm.

In this month’s episode, we explore the relationship between human beings and other beings—between humans and animals, humans and plants, and humans and the earth itself. We talk to Robin Wall Kimmerer, author, scientist, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and Emma Marris, author and journalist, about the interconnections between beings and the role we play in this fluid web of relationships and responsibilities.

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, which has earned Kimmerer wide acclaim. Her first book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing, and her other work has appeared in Orion, Whole Terrain, and numerous scientific journals. She tours widely and has been featured on NPR’s On Being with Krista Tippett and in 2015 addressed the general assembly of the United Nations on the topic of “Healing Our Relationship with Nature.” Kimmerer lives in Syracuse, New York, where she is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both Indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability.

Emma Marris is the author of Wild Souls: Freedom and Flourishing in the Non-Human World and Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World. She also writes about the human and nonhuman worlds, and the enduringly complex relationships between them for National Geographic, the Atlantic, the New York Times, Wired, and other publications. She lives in Oregon with her husband—with whom she occasionally co-authors environmental philosophy papers—and their two children.

For a full transcript of this episode as well as additional resources and further reading, visit the Oregon Humanities website.