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EcoCast: Environmental Conversations On Creative Art, Scholarship, and Teaching. The official podcast of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE). Each episode features interviews with guests sharing their scholarship, creative work, or teaching.
Episodes
Friday May 30, 2025
Friday May 30, 2025
For this episode, we sat down with Kate Rigby to discuss her new book Meditations on Creation in an Era of Extinction. The text is a reclaiming of the ancient theological meditation form, the hexameron, to consider the climate crisis and mass extinction. Meditating on a day of creation in each chapter, she tells us about the insights each day of creation has for the Anthropocene like contemplative practices in the First Day and the move from a "Kingdom" to a "Kindom" of species in the Fifth Day. This episode and the next will be on religion and ecology, a fitting focus on the topic at a time of a new Pope!
For more of Kate Rigby:
Website:
Guest Magpie Recommendation:
Magpie Whisperer - https://www.shop.themagpiewhisperer.com/
ASLE EcoCast:
If you have an idea for an episode, please submit your proposal here: https://forms.gle/Y1S1eP9yXxcNkgWHA
- Twitter: @ASLE_EcoCast
- Lindsay Jolivette: @lin_jolivette
- Alex Tischer: @ak_tischer
If you’re enjoying the show, please consider subscribing, sharing, and writing reviews on your favorite podcast platform(s)!
Episode recorded April 25, 2025
Friday May 02, 2025
Friday May 02, 2025
We sat down with Melody Jue for a second episode to discuss her new work Coralations, a fascinating deep dive into the coral we know and the coral we need to know. Though tropical corals inundate perceptions of coral, there are other deep water and cold water coral that have different connections or coralations to anthropogenic climate change. By rethinking "normative coral," new media across photography, sci fi, and more come into the light.
For more about Melody Jue:
Website: Melodyjue.info
Email: mjue@ucsb.edu
Guest Reading Recommendations:
- a book of waves - Stefan Helmreich
ASLE EcoCast:
If you have an idea for an episode, please submit your proposal here: https://forms.gle/Y1S1eP9yXxcNkgWHA
- Twitter: @ASLE_EcoCast
- Lindsay Jolivette: @lin_jolivette
- Alex Tischer: @ak_tischer
If you’re enjoying the show, please consider subscribing, sharing, and writing reviews on your favorite podcast platform(s)!
Episode recorded March 17, 2025
Friday Apr 04, 2025
Friday Apr 04, 2025
This month's episode is a podcast about a podcast! We sat down with Nate Otjen and Jessica Ng, two of the leaders of the audio story series "Mining for the Climate," to discuss the audio documentary series and its investigation of the rhetoric arguing for continued mining as essential to the "green transition." The first season, set in Gaston County, North Carolina, details the controversy surrounding a proposed lithium mine in the county, and the upcoming second season takes listeners to Nevada to discuss the Thacker Pass Lithium Mine. We discuss their creation process, how they constructed the narrative across five episodes, learn some updates on Gaston County since the first season, and explore the second season's auditory, photographic, and cartographic elements.
For more about Mining for the Climate:
Email:
- Jessica.ng@princeton.edu
- notjen@ramapo.edu
Website:
- Bluelabmedia.org
Guest Reading Recommendations:
- Benedetta Brevini's AI Scholarship
- Kohei Saito's Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto
ASLE EcoCast:
If you have an idea for an episode, please submit your proposal here: https://forms.gle/Y1S1eP9yXxcNkgWHA
- Twitter: @ASLE_EcoCast
- Lindsay Jolivette: @lin_jolivette
- Alex Tischer: @ak_tischer
If you’re enjoying the show, please consider subscribing, sharing, and writing reviews on your favorite podcast platform(s)!
Episode recorded February 28, 2025
Friday Feb 28, 2025
Friday Feb 28, 2025
In this month's episode, we spoke with Sarah Dimick about her new book Unseasonable: Climate Change in Global Literatures. It connects literature and the environment through an idea of seasonality and rhythm. Climate change can be understood as a time of unseasonableness, of environmental events and cycles being outside normal rhythms of time. Living today is defined by this arrhythmia, and Sarah charts new territory in studying literature for its reflections of this cyclicality, what she calls literary phenology.
For more from Sarah Dimick:
Email: sarah.dimick@northwestern.edu
ASLE EcoCast:
If you have an idea for an episode, please submit your proposal here: https://forms.gle/Y1S1eP9yXxcNkgWHA
- Twitter: @ASLE_EcoCast
- Lindsay Jolivette: @lin_jolivette
- Alex Tischer: @ak_tischer
If you’re enjoying the show, please consider subscribing, sharing, and writing reviews on your favorite podcast platform(s)!
Episode recorded January 30, 2025
Wednesday Jan 29, 2025
Wednesday Jan 29, 2025
Today's episode begins a slight turn toward ecoaesthetics in the next few episodes, and we begin with Carolyn Fornoff's new book Subjunctive Aesthetics: Mexican Cultural Production in the Era of Climate Change (2024). Carolyn spoke to us about subjunctivity, a grammatical mood characterized by hypotheticals, and how its imaginative style has sprouted up in recent Mexican film, activism, and texts not to depict climate change in an "evidentiary" sense (a typical narrative style of eco-literature and scholarship to highlight society's quantifiable effect on the environment) but in a more conditional and conjectural sense of possibility. What might the future hold, and what might be done about it?
For more from Carolyn:
Website: https://carolynfornoff.wordpress.com/
Bluesky: @c4.noff.bsky.social
ASLE EcoCast:
If you have an idea for an episode, please submit your proposal here: https://forms.gle/Y1S1eP9yXxcNkgWHA
- Twitter: @ASLE_EcoCast
- Lindsay Jolivette: @lin_jolivette
- Alex Tischer: @ak_tischer
If you’re enjoying the show, please consider subscribing, sharing, and writing reviews on your favorite podcast platform(s)!
Episode recorded December 12, 2024.
Monday Dec 30, 2024
Monday Dec 30, 2024
In the final episode of our extinction series, we chatted with two extinction biologists, Hope Sutton and Sara Schweitzer, who work for the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. Sara is the assistant chief and wildlife diversity program director and Hope is the eastern wildlife diversity supervisor. We discussed their challenges in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Asheville and their triumphs in the successful rehabilitation of some of the more than 100 endangered animals under their purview! While their work is field-focused, they remind us that the stories told about the animals are extremely important to influence public support for the species.
For more on Sara and Hope, go to Ncwildlife.org, where the organization publishes quarterly reports.
ASLE EcoCast:
If you have an idea for an episode, please submit your proposal here: https://forms.gle/Y1S1eP9yXxcNkgWHA
- Twitter: @ASLE_EcoCast
- Lindsay Jolivette: @lin_jolivette
- Alex Tischer: @ak_tischer
If you’re enjoying the show, please consider subscribing, sharing, and writing reviews on your favorite podcast platform(s)!
Episode recorded December 16, 2024.
Friday Nov 29, 2024
Friday Nov 29, 2024
In this second episode of our ongoing extinction series, we sit down with Jean-Thomas Tremblay and Steven Swarbrick to discuss their thought-provoking co-written manuscript, Negative Life: The Cinema of Extinction. Our conversation with them touches not only on the concrete topics of extinction and cinema, but also explores the theoretical potential of negations and contradictions as frameworks for understanding the relationship (or not) between humans and the more-than-human world.
For more from Jean-Thomas and Steven:
https://jeanthomastremblay.carrd.co/
https://www.stevenswarbrick.com/
ASLE EcoCast:
If you have an idea for an episode, please submit your proposal here: https://forms.gle/Y1S1eP9yXxcNkgWHA
- Twitter: @ASLE_EcoCast
- Lindsay Jolivette: @lin_jolivette
- Alex Tischer: @ak_tischer
If you’re enjoying the show, please consider subscribing, sharing, and writing reviews on your favorite podcast platform(s)!
Episode recorded September 26, 2024.
Sunday Oct 27, 2024
Sunday Oct 27, 2024
In this first episode of our extinction series, we met with Todd May to discuss his new book Should We Go Extinct? A Philosophical Dilemma for Our Times. This massive question is accessibly analyzed yet Todd also brings in issues underdiscussed in extinction discourse: Who is the inexact "we" behind the question, how do different humans contribute to ecological crisis and therefore human and nonhuman extinction, and what is the role of art in deciding whether humanity's existence should continue? Instead of concluding on one side or the other, Todd finds asking the question of humanity's extinction itself is a productive thought experiment for ourselves and our community.
For more on Todd May:
Website: https://www.toddmayphilosopher.com/
Email: todd-may@warren-wilson.edu
Todd's Reading Recommendation: The Emotions: A Philosophical Exploration by Peter Goldie (2002).
ASLE EcoCast:
If you have an idea for an episode, please submit your proposal here: https://forms.gle/Y1S1eP9yXxcNkgWHA
- Twitter: @ASLE_EcoCast
- Lindsay Jolivette: @lin_jolivette
If you’re enjoying the show, please consider subscribing, sharing, and writing reviews on your favorite podcast platform(s)!
Episode recorded September 18, 2024.
Monday Aug 26, 2024
Monday Aug 26, 2024
In this episode, we met with Nadia Colburn to discuss her new poetry collection I Say the Sky! Deeply engaged with the ecological collapse happening around us while also reinvesting in our own existence, her poems range from the simplicity in appreciating the beauty of an onion to reassessing childhood trauma. We also talk through her multi-hyphenate pursuits and the continual search for the "symphony inside you".
For more on Nadia:
Website: nadiacolburn.com
Email: nadia@nadiacolburn.com
ASLE EcoCast:
If you have an idea for an episode, please submit your proposal here: https://forms.gle/Y1S1eP9yXxcNkgWHA
- Twitter: @ASLE_EcoCast
- Lindsay Jolivette: @lin_jolivette
If you’re enjoying the show, please consider subscribing, sharing, and writing reviews on your favorite podcast platform(s)!
Episode recorded July 22, 2024.
Sunday Jul 28, 2024
Sunday Jul 28, 2024
In our final episode of our polar environmental humanities series, we have Penn State English professor Hester Blum on to discuss her environmental humanities research on polar ecomedia! Dr. Blum discusses the ephemeral texts and productions aboard Arctic and Antarctic voyages including newspapers. Newspapers on polar voyages? Yes, you heard that right. These texts have contemporary and global lessons to teach in that their production took place while in extreme environments.
For more on Hester:
Twitter: @hesterblum
Email: hester.blum@psu.edu
Website: hesterblum.com
ASLE EcoCast:
If you have an idea for an episode, please submit your proposal here: https://forms.gle/Y1S1eP9yXxcNkgWHA
- Twitter: @ASLE_EcoCast
- Lindsay Jolivette: @lin_jolivette
If you’re enjoying the show, please consider subscribing, sharing, and writing reviews on your favorite podcast platform(s)!
Episode recorded May 22, 2024.