We are delighted to announce the themes and participants in our 2026 ASLE Spotlight series.
Each of the three ASLE Spotlight episodes will feature moderated conversations with ASLE members who have produced new critical and creative work in the environmental humanities. Episodes follow a theme, and highlight publicly engaged scholarship. They are recorded for later viewing, and posted to ASLE Spotlight and to our Spotlight Channel on YouTube.
Read about and view or register for each episode below.
EPISODE 1: Decolonizing Environments
Recorded January 23, 2026
View EpisodeCo-hosts: Lisa Fink, Sarah Wald
FEATURED GUESTS/WORKS:
- David J. Vazquez, Decolonial Environmentalisms: Climate Justice and Speculative Futurity in Latinx Cultural Production
- Teresa Dzieglewicz, Something Small of How to See a River
- Julianne Warren, “Alaska” Is Not a Blank Space: Unsettling Aldo Leopold’s Odyssey
- Allison Carruth, Novel Ecologies: Nature Remade and the Illusions of Tech
EPISODE 2: Embodied Approaches
Recorded February 6, 2026
View EpisodeCo-hosts: Fernando Varela, Kat Caribeaux
FEATURED GUESTS/WORKS:
- Madison Jones, North Woods Project
- Rasheena Fountain, Dropped Down Blues
- Radhika Subramaniam, Footprint
- Maya Jewell Zeller, Raised by Ferns
EPISODE 3: Multispecies Connections
March 13, 2026
1-2pm EST
Co-hosts: TBA
FEATURED GUESTS/WORKS:
John Yunker and Midge Raymond, Animal Writes: Prompts and Practices to Guide the Animal Writer’s Journey
Writing for animals is a unique endeavor; writers have to think not only about the animals they’re portraying in their work but about audiences who may not be familiar with certain species or the topics of animal rights. In Animal Writes, you’ll learn tips for how to portray animals empathically and authentically, as well as how to approach publishing and your readers. From language to craft to exploring your individual writer’s journey, this book will provide the inspiration and tools you need to portray animals genuinely and compassionately in your work.
John Yunker and Midge Raymond are co-authors of the work and co-founders of Ashland Creek Press, a vegan-owned small press devoted to environmental and animal literature.
Boria Sax, The Butterfly Who Dreamt Himself a Man: Metamorphoses, Entomological and Human
From ancient fables to modern science, insects and their metamorphoses have inspired human understanding of life’s transitions such as birth, coming of age, marriage, and death. This book begins with Zhuang Zhou’s butterfly dream, moves on to tales of shape-shifting, and discusses Dürer, Merian, Swammerdam, Kafka, Dickinson, and many others.
For a 30% discount, the code is UCPNEW, and the book may be purchased at press.uchicago.edu.
Boria Sax teaches at Sing Sing and the graduate English program of Mercy University. He is author of 20 books, which have been widely translated.
Lesley Wheeler, Mycocosmic
In Mycocosmic, Lesley Wheeler’s latest poetry collection, incantatory poems summon transformation after the losses of midlife, including her mother’s death. Beneath them runs a book-length essay in verse inspired by mycelia, the fungal networks thriving beneath us, exploring how the processes of grief nourish new life. Wheeler invents a fungal poetics to metabolize secrets, grief, and anger so that life can begin anew.
Lesley Wheeler’s sixth poetry collection is Mycocosmic. Her work appears in Orion, Poetry, Poets & Writers, and Ecotone, and she is Poetry Editor of Shenandoah.
Lay Sion Ng, Hemingway, Ecology and Culture: Re-reading Hemingway in the Anthropocene
Ng’s research uncovers the ecological dimensions hidden within seemingly human-focused American literature. Take Hemingway—not exactly who you’d expect to teach interspecies relationships or environmental crisis, right? Yet Hemingway, Ecology and Culture reveals how his anthropocentric narratives pulse with “ecological forces”—human and more-than-human connections previous scholarship overlooked.
Lay Sion Ng is an Assistant Professor of American Literature at the English Literature Department at Sophia University, Japan. She has a website named Issues Under Tissues.
