How have histories of colonialism and their foundational language of gender, race, sexuality, and nation shaped the language, terminology, and theories of the modern plant sciences? How and why do botanical theories remain grounded in the violence of their colonial pasts? In wrestling with these difficult origins, Dr. Banu Subramanian develops the concept of migrant ecologies to retheorize plant migration and reproductive biology. She explores new biological frameworks that harness the power of feminist thought in order to reimagine and reinvigorate our love of plants.

Banu Subramanian, Ph.D., is the Luella LaMer Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Wellesley College. Trained as an evolutionary biologist and plant scientist, she is a leading scholar of postcolonial feminist science studies and the author three books, including Botany of Empire: Plant Worlds and the Scientific Legacies of Colonialism (University of Washington Press, 2024) and Ghost Stories for Darwin: The Science of Variation and the Politics of Diversity (University of Illinois Press, 2014), which won the Ludwik Fleck Prize 2016 for an outstanding book across the breadth of science and technology studies.