Thinking With Plants and Fungi: Celebrating the voices of the more-than-human world

When hundreds gathered at the Harvard Divinity School in May for a three-day conference on the sentient lives of plants and fungi, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, Henry David Thoreau, and generations of Indigenous people may not only have recognized the conversations, but they would have also applauded them.

From May 15 to 17, the Center for the Study of World Religion’s (CSWR) Thinking With Plants and Fungi Conference was an immersive, in-depth exploration into the consciousness and agency of the more-than-human world: trees, plants, and fungi. The conference was a culmination of an 18-month initiative at the CSWR, which explored how these inquiries illuminate the nature of mind and matter and examine humans’ relationship to the more-than-human world.

Drawing more than 1,500 attendees both in person and online, a diverse range of scholars, artists, and practitioners from around the world — representing various disciplines within the humanities and social sciences — participated in panel discussions and keynote speeches that explored a dynamic range of topics, including the history of plant neurobiology, ancestral human relationships with fungi, and emerging scientific discoveries, as well as poetry and novels, from the perspective of plants and fungi and Emily Dickinson’s plant thinking. There was also an opportunity to tour the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, which features a rich collection of endangered species of trees and plants.  

Rachael Petersen, M.Div. ’24, Program Lead of the Thinking With Plants and Fungi initiative, stated that the speakers and panelists were intentionally selected to represent various facets of exploration and inquiry into the ecosystem of plants and fungi. 

“From stink horns to mosses, from mold to copal, from philosophy to biology, from literature to philosophy, from morals to morals, we are going to cover a lot of ground together,” Petersen said in her opening address. “This is a dynamic living ecosystem of thinkers we’ve assembled here in front of me today, and I think, as most of us in this room probably know, diversity is strength when it comes to ecosystems.”

Much of the conference focused on how to define and what language to use to address the expanding knowledge of the mysterious lives of plants and fungi. How do we best conceptualize and describe the scientific evidence that the more-than-human species communicate and problem solve in their respective environments? How do we readjust our thinking about these life forms? 

Merlin Sheldrake, a biologist, author, director of the Impact Society for the Protection of Underground Networks, and presenter of the documentary Fungi: A Web of Life, was the conference’s opening keynote speaker, interviewed by Petersen. His New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling book “Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures” focuses on fungi’s life cycle, the evolutionary role fungi play in plants, and the relationship between humans and the fungal community. His latest research at the University of Amsterdam, on how mycorrhizal fungi build networks in self-regulating waves, revealed the dynamic, bidirectional ways of transporting materials through a complex traffic system, and how fungi regulate speed and direction depending on their needs or the challenges they face at the moment.

“I think this touches on the way that we talk about symbiotic relationships and ultimately the way that we make sense of the living world,” he said. “Is nature fundamentally cooperative? Is it fundamentally full of conflict? What do those different readings of the living world tell us about ourselves? How can we naturalize our behavior in the living world based on how we understand the answers to those questions?”

The concept of being in community with plants and fungi is not new; the idea that all life-forms in nature are intertwined with human life is at the center of Indigenous cultures around the world, ancient European traditions, and is the subject of writings by local naturalists, such as Emerson, Dickinson, and Thoreau.

“I think they would be surprised, maybe pleasantly surprised, because I do think that they felt many of the things that are being expressed today,” said Michael Marder, research professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of the Basque County, and conference keynote speaker on the plant thinking of Emily Dickinson. “So maybe what we’re doing here is not something new. We’re catching up with something older, definitely older than even the 19th century of Dickson.”