Course modules
David Abram & Alnoor Ladha
From where does a story sprout? What specific land and soil did it grow from? What ecology is it seeking to tend to, respond to, root into? How do my stories “tell” me into greater intimacy with the kin outside my door? We can reclaim the ecological nature of myths coopted by patriarchal domination by replanting them in their original biological and social ecosystems. Examining the root systems of popular myths, we see that, below the focus on human exceptionalism, myth is the land talking to itself. The triple lens of MYCO ECO MYTHO guides us into an investigation of how extractive capitalism paired with colonialism has created a “narrative dysbiosis” in the cultural gut, suppressing a biodiversity of more environmentally aware perspectives. We explore what it might mean to compost old stories with contemporary science, philosophy, poetry, and ecology in order to create the new soil that will sprout myths freshly adapted to our current crises.
Joshua Schrei, Tom Hirons & Ayana Jamieson
Ecosystems are constituted by constant cycles of decay and regrowth. We can replant myth in ecology by understanding that storytelling, too, remains healthy when it goes through cycles, decaying, regrowing, and adapting to suit shifting climatological and social pressures. We can examine oral storytelling, forest ecosystems, fungal spores, and a rich mythology of storm gods to begin to understand how we cannot prize ascension over descent, text over spoken word. Healthy mythologies grow connective tissue between dualisms, cultivating fertile mythic gradients between opposing ideologies. Conversely, we can look at what happens when these mythic cycles get interrupted in the examples of patriarchy and material reductionism.
Michael Bauer & Minna Salami
Picture a classical hero. Chances are, you may have envisioned a knight or warrior slaying a dragon or a gorgon. The hero proves his valour by defeating the adversary. But who is the adversary? Is it really a monster? Or is it a culture that opposes hierarchy? What if there was a secret inside every dragon-slaying, beast-destroying myth you’ve ever heard? And what if that secret was both tender and tragic? What if behind every famous monster, there was a glimmer of another world? A world of lunar time, horned gods, mother goddesses, and earth-reverent, land-based celebration. We can begin to understand most modern monster myths as patriarchal revisions of forgotten partnership narratives that, long ago, honoured alternative temporalities and the more-than-human world.
David Zilber & Chiara Baldini
For too long patriarchy has been conflated with the masculine. But before the sword-wielding heroes of legend readily cut down forests, slaughtered the old deities, and vanquished their enemies, there were thousands of years of vegetal gods associated with the underworld, fermentation, radical social movements, visionary states, and sacred food rituals. Hidden in the root system below myths we think we know are these wilder modes of masculinity and vegetal mysticism. Osiris, Tammuz, Attis, Adonis, and Dionysus guide us into the soil-scape of their shared mycorrhizal system, pointing us towards plants and fungi for lessons on how to combat systems of oppression.
Sam Lee & brontë velez
Human narratives have held centre stage for thousands of years. But there was a time when legendary bards knew it was their job to channel the stories of animals and plants and stones. We resurrect a long line of magician harpists that span all the way from Palestine to Greece to England. These prophetic figures share a common thread of magic, prophecy, poetry, and more-than-human collaborators. Orpheus, Merlin, King David, Tristan, and Taliesin teach us that mystical art is not the product of an individual. The magic is in the overlap of many minds. These harpists ask us the important question, “In an age of extinction, which species needs my mouth?”
Andreas Weber & Patricia Kaishian
Using a lens of Queer Ecology, we can follow a line of love goddesses back to our symbiotic multicellular origins. Aphrodite, born of foam, reminds us of our oceanic ancestors. Inanna teaches us how to tie our roots together in the underworld, recalling the symbiotic origin of plant and fungal root systems. How can we understand heteronormativity as incompatible with the wild biodiversity present in both sexual expression and romantic traditions? As we compost normative ideas about sacred couples and love stories, we arrive at lichenized multi-species lovers, more suited to the tangled, biodiverse ecosystems we actually live inside.
Toko-Pa Turner
Our bodies are composed of more bacterial cells than human cells. There are miles of mycelial fungi in a teaspoon of dirt. Resilient ecosystems are resilient in that they are home to many different species. While monomyths like the hero’s journey have long been popular, they are no longer suited to the moral and scientific complexity of extinction, ecocide, and climate change. Monologue will not save us. But polyphonic – multi-voiced – storytelling might open up adjacent possibilities. How can we rewild the Arthurian myths, turning a collection of monologue-ing heroes into a collaborative ecology of differences?
Bayo Akomolafe & Manchán Magan
Uprooted from the Galilean ecology from which he drew his nature metaphors and translated into the language of his oppressors, the teachings of Jesus have easily lapsed into dogma. How does a storytelling magician get coopted by imperialism and patriarchy? Let us replant Jesus in his original ecological and social context, and his mythic vegetal god mycelium, to recover the environmentally and socially radical nature of his teachings.
