Entangled and binary-free: books reflecting queer ecologies

"It is both utopian fantasy and a political act of resistance to imagine a garden beyond borders. Queer life persists by refusing enclosure, and yet it uses those walls as as a trellis on which to refashion itself.'

Jenny Chamerette, from Q is for Garden

In order to tell a story of the world different enough to survive it, we must break free of all kinds of binaries - we must look to the fringes of capitalism and patriarchy to the places where entanglement blooms and forges new paths, where difference and fluidity nourish us. And we must celebrate the fact that our queerness is everywhere around us - that we belong to nature's queerness too.

We're so lucky to be hosting not one but TWO events, on consecutive nights in July, that explore different aspects of queer ecologies:

On Tuesday July 14th, we dive into the history of science with queer-tinted lenses in the company of Ross Brooks. In Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life, he shows us how queerness was at the heart of evolutionists’ thinking about the natural world. Tickets are here!

The next evening, on July 15th, Jenny Chamerette treats us to a feast of queer thought, nature writing and memoir. Q is for Garden is a a bold, tender exploration of how queerness and nature entwine - and what happens when we step beyond the binaries that fence us in. Tickets here!

We hope to see you there!

Although queer ecology, named as such, still remains a subject at the fringes of publishing, it is everywhere in stories, poetry and the work of the most bold thinkers. The books listed below, across forms, all embody it.

For more online inspiration on queer ecologies, these folks and their immense creativity are also worth checking out:

www.queernature.org

All My Relations Podcast

Unnatural Passions?: Notes toward a Queer Ecology by Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands