Understories: A Queer Rewilding of Ecology and Literature

This capstone project metaphorays into rewilding contemporary climate conscious literature and biology research related to forests. It situates (under)stories as firmly rooted in the context of queer ecology, pointing to a non-essentialist and anti-colonialist view of the world that strongly endorses the significance of environmental humanities in liberation work. Climate change and its connection to systems of social oppression necessitate a breakdown of the divide between arts and sciences in hopes of sustainable futures in the Anthropocene. Storytelling plays an important role in this. Queer eco-literature will not save the world on its own, of course, but it does hold the power of uncovering why the world is worth saving and how we might engage with restoration. Inked illustrations were created by Aina Zabinski. The subtitle translation for the first essay, 'Roots,' uses Katie Holten's tree alphabet rewilding tool.