Catriona A H Sandilands | Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change

Professor

PhD Coordinator

Credentials

PhD Sociology, York University
MA Sociology, York University
BA (Honours) Sociology, University of Victoria

Research Keywords

Environmental Humanities; Queer, Multispecies & Feminist Ecologies; Critical Plant Studies; Public Humanities & Cultures; Ecocriticism & Environmental Writing; Biopolitics.

Contact Information

4700 Keele Street
Toronto, ON M3J1P3

416 736 2100

essandi@yorku.ca

http://www.catesandilands.ca/

Research Interests

Plurality is the condition of human action because we are all the same, that is, human, in such a way that nobody is ever the same as anyone else who ever lived, lives, or will live. (Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition)

Perhaps my most important task as a teacher, writer, and researcher is to help cultivate the “plurality” of which Arendt speaks: we create a common world as we share and reflect together on our unique, embodied relationships to it. This connection of worldliness and plurality is especially true for our relations to the more-than-human world. By developing a deeply situated understanding of the multispecies communities of which we are a part, we can appear to one another to discuss them, and by holding our perceptions and experiences up to the views of multiple others, we can truly understand both our situatedness and our relatedness.

My work has pursued this task of creating a common world from multiple angles:

theoretical / philosophical writing on ecofeminism and queer ecology as ways to explore the embodied, intersectional politics of sex, gender and nature;
sustained engagement with ecocriticism and ecocultural studies through both professional leadership and engagements with diverse Canadian literary ecologies;
creative explorations of place-based, narrative scholarship highlighting the importance of story to the development of a decolonizing, relationally-based practice of environmental justice; and
interdisciplinary research on plants as participants in multispecies biopolitical entanglements, and on people/plant relationships as both vectors of settler-capitalist dispossession and sites of resistance and transformation.

Research Projects

Title: Plantasmagoria: Botanical Encounters in the (M)Anthropocene

Summary: This book project draws on my current plant-based research interests and will result in a collection of creative nonfiction (personal) and critical essays on botanical biopolitics, environmental history, human/plant encounters, plant fictions, and everyday plant relationships as elements in an expansive, multispecies, environmental justice politics. Essays and creative interventions will examine a wide array of flora (e.g., Scotch broom, mulberries, Douglas-fir, stinging nettle) and their entangled relationships in and with a variety of political and historical contexts (e.g., colonialism, climate change, misogyny, and the [M]Anthropocene), as well as literary texts that push “plant-thinking” into feminist, queer, trans, anti-racist, and decolonizing work.

Sample: https://catalystjournal.org/index.php/catalyst/article/view/32863/25424

Title: Dear Jane Rule

Summary: This book project considers the literary and political legacy of BC author Jane Rule. Rule was a prolific author of fiction (realist novels and short stories) and non-fiction (essays and journalistic pieces) and was an influential—and sometimes contentious—commentator on a variety of feminist, lesbian, queer, and literary political topics. This book will explore Rule’s literary and political commitments and contributions across the communities of her readers and, especially, her extensive network of correspondents, as well as the more immediate and intimate communities in which she lived and of which she was a vital part.

Sample: https://niche-canada.org/2016/04/18/stumps-jane-rule-on-galiano/

Title: Storying Climate Change: Narrative, Imagination, Justice, Resilience (Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Fellowship, 2016-20)

Summary: Through workshops and other structured gatherings, this project developed a significant public conversation about climate change, environmental justice, and everyday life, working from the premise that sharing “small” stories from personal experience —fiction and nonfiction, traditional and experimental—is a crucial practice from which to cultivate creative, collaborative, just, and meaningful responses to environmental and climate justice issues. Results of this project included the anthology of stories, poetry, and creative nonfiction Rising Tides: Reflections for Climate Changing Times (Caitlin Press, 2019), as well as the “Storying Climate Change” website that describes key elements in the process of the collaboration, provides additional resources on story and literature in response to climate change, and offers both a record of community events and a selection of contributors’ readings that make a continued space for conversation in the COVID universe in which all in-person events after March, 2020 had to be cancelled.

Website: www.storyingclimatechange.com

Research Output

In progress Dear Jane Rule.

In progress Plantasmagoria: Botanical Encounters in the (M)Anthropocene.

2002 “This Land Has Called Forth from You Your Strength as a Lesbian”: A Separatist Ecology? (Toronto: University of Toronto Press Research Monograph #5).

1999 The Good-Natured Feminist: Ecofeminism and Democracy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press).

In progress (with C. Gersdorf), Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture, Environment, Guest Editors, Special Issue, “Gardening the Anthropocene” (2022).

In progress (with P. Gibson), Performance Philosophy, Guest Editors, Special Issue, “Plant Studies” (2021).

2019 Rising Tides: Reflections for Climate Changing Times (Halfmoon Bay, BC: Caitlin Press).

2018 (with K. Blanchard), The Goose, Guest Editors, Special Cluster, “Sex and the (Motor) City: Ecologies of Middlesex,” online.

2018 ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, Guest Editor, Special Cluster, “Canadian Environmental Literatures and Politics,” 25:2, Spring.

2010 (with B. Erickson), Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire (Bloomington: Indiana UP).

2004 (with M. Hessing and R. Raglon). This Elusive Land: Women and the Canadian Environment (Vancouver: UBC Press).

In progress “Invasive Intimacies: On Mulberries and the Queer Sweetness of Kinship,” for Susanne Lettow.

and Sabine Nessel, eds., Ecologies of Gender: Contemporary Nature Relations and the Nonhuman Turn (London: Routledge, 2022).

In progress “Bloodroot at 20,” introductory essay for reprint of Betsy Warland, Bloodroot (Toronto: Inanna Press, 2021).

In press “Plants,” for Jeffrey Cohen and Stephanie Foote, eds., The Cambridge Companion to the Environmental Humanities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022).

In press “Timber. Douglas-fir. Art.” Introductory essay for Plant Fever: Towards a Phyto-Centric Design (exhibition catalogue), project by studio d-o-t-s produced by the CID au Grand-Hornu, Brussels, BE, 2020.

In press* “Loving the Difficult: Scotch Broom” for Thom Van Dooren and Matthew Chrulew, ed., Kin: Thinking with Deborah Bird Rose (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021).

In press* “Humus,” for John Hausdoerffer et al, ed., What Kind of Ancestor Do You Want to Be? (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020).

2018* “Fire, Fantasy and Futurity: Queer Ecology Meets Silver Bush,” in Rita Bode and Jean Mitchell (ed.), Lucy Maud Montgomery and the Matter of Nature (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press), pp.27-40.

2017* “Vegetate,” in Lowell Duckert and Jeffrey Cohen (ed.), Veer Ecology: Key Words for Ecotheory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), pp. 16-29.

2017* “Losing My Place: Landscapes of Depression,” in Ashlee Cunsolo and Karen Landman (eds.), Mourning Nature: Hope at the Heart of Ecological Loss and Grief (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press), pp. 144-168.

2017* (with J. Adamson) “Insinuations: Thinking Plant Politics with The Day of the Triffids,” in Patricia Vieira, Monica Gagliano and John Ryan (eds.), The Language of Plants: Science, Philosophy, Literature and Cinema (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), pp. 234-252.

2017 “Feminism and Biopolitics: A Cyborg Account,” in Sherilyn MacGregor (ed.), The Routledge International Handbook on Gender and Environment (London: Routledge), pp. 229-38.

2016 “Some 'F' Words for the Environmental Humanities: Feralities, Feminisms, Futurities,” in Ursula Heise, Jon Christensen and Michelle Niemann (eds.), The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities (London: Routledge), pp. 427-35.

2016 “Lavender’s Green? Redux,” in Caroline Picard (ed.), imperceptibly and slowly opening (New York: The Green Lantern Press), pp. 236-45.

2016 “Floral Sensations: Plant Biopolitics,” in Teena Gabrielson et al (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Political Theory (New York: Oxford University Press), pp. 226-37.

2014* “Pro/polis: Three Forays into the Political Lives of Bees,” in Serpil Oppermann and Serenella Iovino (eds.), Material Ecocriticisms (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), pp. 157-71.

2014 “Queer Life? Ecocriticism After the Fire,” in Greg Garrard (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Ecocriticism (New York: Oxford University Press), pp. 305-19.

2014 “Violent Affinities: Sex, Gender and Species in Cereus Blooms at Night,” in Louise Westling (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Environment (New York: Cambridge University Press), pp. 90-103.

2014* “Acts of Nature: Literature, Excess and Environmental Politics,” in Smaro Kamboureli and Christl Verduyn (eds.), Critical Collaborations: Indigenity, Diaspora, and Ecology in Canadian Literary Studies (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press), pp. 127-142.

In progress* “Outlander: Jane Rule’s Public Lives,” for BC Studies.

In progress “A Test of Nettle,” for The Dalhousie Review, Special Issue, “Biophilia” (2021).

2019 (with M. Szczygielska and O. Cielemęcka) “Thinking the Feminist Vegetal Turn in the Shadow of Douglas-firs: An Interview,” Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience 5.2.

2018* (with J. Adamson and S. LeMenager) “Citizen Humanities: Teaching ‘Life Overlooked’ as Interdisciplinary Ecology,” for Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities 5:2, 96-121.

2018 “Introduction: Canadian Environmental Literatures and Politics,” ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 25:2 (Spring), 280-91.

2018* “Into the Blue: Betsy Warland’s Queer Ecopoetics,” ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 25:1 (Winter), 17-36.

2018 “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush: A Queer Botanical Meander,” Center for Sustainable Practice and the Arts Quarterly 19, 28-33.

2018 “Mulberriddlesex,” The Goose 17.1, online.

2018 (with K. Blanchard), “Sex and the (Motor) City: Ecologies of Middlesex,” The Goose 17.1, online.

2017* “Fields of Dreams,” Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities 4:2-3, 111-126.

2017 “For Sylvia,” part of “On Sylvia Bowerbank: Green Literary Scholar,” The Goose 15.2, online.

2016 “Combustion,” The Goose 15.1, online.

2016 “Environmental Humanities and Publics,” part of “Reflections on the Arts, Environment, and Culture After Ten Years of The Goose,” The Goose 14.2, online.

2014 “Mockingbird Resilience,” Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities 1.1, online.

2018 (with S. Mason-Case and C. Potvin), “Why Ottawa Should Step Away from Trans Mountain,” Policy Options. August 29, online.

2018 “I See My Garden as a Barometer of Climate Change,” The Guardian. July 09, online.

2016 “’Stumps’: Jane Rule on Galiano,” The Otter. April 18, online.

2018 Review of Theresa Kishkan, Euclid’s Orchard and Other Essays, The Ormsby Review #254, online (abridged and reprinted in BC Book World, Summer 2018).

2017* “Making Kin, Making Trouble: Donna Haraway’s Critical Ongoingness,” The Annals of Science 74.4:326-330.

2017 “Not Just Pussy Hats at the Climate March: Feminist Encounters with the Anthropocene.” Review of Richard Grusin, ed., Anthropocene Feminism, for The Los Angeles Review of Books, July 6, online.

2017* “Fear of a Queer Plant,” GLQ: Gay and Lesbian Quarterly 23.4: 419-29.

2017 Review of Betsy Warland, Oscar of Between: A Memoir of Identity and Ideas, The Ormsby Review #99, online.

POSTPONED “Botanical Colonialities and the Politics of Cohabitation,” Invited Lecture, Initiative for Environmental Humanities, Brown University, Providence RI, April, 2020.

2020 “Planting Queer Intimacies,” Invited Lecture, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, Western Washington University, Bellingham WA, March.

2019 “Storying Climate Change,” Keynote Panelist, Strange Weather: The Science and Art of Climate Change, Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto, November.

2019 “Invasive Plantimacies? Queering Kinship,” Invited Lecture, Posthumanism Research Institute, Brock University, St Catharines, November.

2018 “Gardening in the (M)Anthropocene,” Invited Lecture, Department of Geography, York University, October.

2018 “Gardening in the (M)Anthropocene,” Keynote Address, European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture, and Environment, University of Würzberg, GE, September.

2018 “Feminist Botany for the Age of Man,” Sydney Environmental Humanities Lecture Series, Australian Museum, Sydney, AU, July.

2017 “Phytopolitics: Four Forays in Vegetation,” Keynote Address for Plantarium: Re-Imagining Green Futurities, Linköping University, SE, July.

2017 “The Young in One Another’s Arms at 40: A Conversation for International Women’s Day,” Invited Lecture, Galiano Community Library Speakers Series, Galiano Island, BC, March.

2017 “Vegetation: Four Forays into Critical Plant Studies,” Invited Lecture, Department of Environment and Geography, University of Manitoba.

2017 “Ecology, Agency, and Community: Plant Politics?” Invited Public Lecture, Cohen Center for the Study of Technological Humanism, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, January.

2016 “Vegetation? The Biopolitics of Becoming-Plant,” Invited Lecture, Department of English, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, October.

2016 “Phytopolitics: Four Forays into Vegetation,” Invited Keynote Address, International Association for Environmental Philosophy, Salt Lake City, UT, October.

2016 “A Vegetative State? Plant Biopolitics,” Invited Symposium Presentation, The Biopolitics of America, University of Würzberg, July.

2016 “Queering Communities: Becoming (With) Plants,” Invited Symposium Lectures (2), XPlore Berlin, July.

2016 “Outlander: Jane Rule’s Public Lives,” Invited Keynote Address, Galiano Community Library Annual General Meeting, Galiano Island, BC, April.

2016 “Outlander: Jane Rule’s Public Lives,” Lansdowne Public Lecture, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, March.

2016 (with R. Pickard), “(Un)Settling and (Re) Membering: Ecocritical Futures?” Invited Lansdowne Seminar Presentation, Department of English, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, February.

2016 “Combustion,” Invited Presentation, Inaugural Ecocriticism and Environmental Humanities Roundtable, Modern Languages Association, Austin, TX, January.

2015 "Some 'F' Words for the Environmental Humanities: Feralities, Feminisms, Futurities,” Invited Presentation, Mellon Sawyer Seminar, UCLA, June.

2015 “In a Vegetal Time and Space: Queering Multispecies Politics,” Invited Public Lecture, University of British Columbia, “Queer U,” February.

2014 “Botanically Queer: Plants, Sex, and Biopolitics,” Invited Public Lecture, Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, University of British Columbia, October.

2014 “Vital Feminist Matters,” Invited Keynote Panel Presentation, Association for Literature, Environment and Culture in Canada, Thunder Bay, ON, August.

2014 “Encountering Plants: Entanglements and Embodiments,” Invited Keynote Address, “Ecological Bodies” Symposium, University of Illinois, Champaign, May.

2014 “Botanically Queer,” Invited Public Lecture, Columbia University, New York, March.

2014 "Imagining Communities in the Anthropocene: Multi-species Relationships,” Invited

Consultant/Presenter, Humanities and the Environment Workshop, Arizona State University, February.

POSTPONED “Climate Stories,” roundtable presentation in “The Public Environmental Humanities: Practices for Resilience,” for Human Matters: Engaging Publics in the Humanities, UBC Okanagan, Kelowna, BC.

2019 “’The Image is Fire’: Pyropoetics after Audre Lorde,” for the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment Biennial Conference, Davis, CA, June.

2018 “Invasive Plantimacies and Queer Ecologies,” for the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, Toronto, ON, November.

2018 (with A. Neimanis, J. MacLeod, E. McGiffin, S. Reid, and J. Hamilton), “Writing in the Wrack Zone: Feminist Lyrical Experiments in Settler-Capitalist Ruins,” for the Association for Literature, Environment and Culture in Canada, Victoria, BC, June.

2017 “Plantasm: Vegetal Participation and Imagination,” Participatory Environmental Humanities Workshop, University of New South Wales, Sydney, AU, July (videoconference).

2017 Mulberiddlesex,” for “Sex and the (Motor) City: Ecologies of Middlesex II,” Association for the Study of Literature and Environment Biennial Conference, Detroit, MI, June.

2016 “Fields of Dreams,” for the Association for Literature, Environment and Culture in Canada, Kingston, ON, June.

2015 “Transience and Transgression” (respondent for the panel “Unsettling Acts: Queering Ecotheory Through Migration and Transience”), for the American Studies Association, Toronto, ON, October

2015 “Fear of a Queer Plant,” for the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment Biennial Conference, Moscow, ID, June.

2014 “Jane Rule’s Queer Border Crossings,” for the Western Literature Association, Victoria BC, November.

2014 “’The Only Lesbian in Canada’: Jane Rule and the Queer Politics of Publicity,” for Discourse and Dynamics: Canadian Women as Public Intellectuals, Mount Allison University, Sackville NB, October.

Recognition & Awards

York University Research Leader Award
Faculty of Environmental Studies Dean’s Research Award
Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Fellowship
Lansdowne Visiting Scholar, University of Victoria
Canada Research Chair in Sustainability and Culture
Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship, University of Oregon

Courses

Course Code	Title
ENVS 1800	Environmental Writing / Writing the Environment
ENVS 8102	PhD Seminar
ENVS 5103	Nature and Society
ENVS 6149	Culture and Environment
ENVS 3320	Sex, Gender, Nature