Molly Wallace

How can we understand climate change, food crises, plastic pollution, or GMOs? And what ought we to do about these crises? Engaging with these necessarily interdisciplinary questions, my research investigates what humanities scholars in general and literary critics in particular might contribute to environmental debates. Over the last several years, my work has focused on global environmental risk, tracking cultural responses to such crises as nuclear meltdowns, toxic chemicals, genetically modified foods, and climate collapse across a range of texts, from novels, poems, and plays, to websites, films, popular media and high art. More recently, I have turned to more affirmative accounts of environmental change, including permaculture, agroecology, and biodynamics. Though I am trained in American literature, I am especially interested in supervising students invested in literature and environment and ecocultural studies, whatever their geographical focus.