Radical Roots: Rethinking the Imperial Imaginary Through Plants

How might the history of art and empire in the long nineteenth century be reimagined through the history of plants, not merely as symbols or decorative adornments, but as active agents of change and environmental witness? This panel welcomes papers that propose new ways of conceptualizing the artistic and botanical legacy of imperialism in light of recent scholarship in critical plant studies. How have plants, plant cultivation, and horticulture shaped national and imperial imaginaries, from the nineteenth century to now? How have plants signified the exoticized other or served as indigenous markers of home and memory? How have plants operated as drivers of industry, as well as indexical markers of ecological destruction? While functioning as extracted resources fueling the imperial circulatory system, how might plants also suggest alternative networks of resistance, resilience, restoration, and renewal? As raw materials transmuted into pigments, woven into textiles, molded into supports, and applied as ornaments, how have plants shaped artistic practice in and through the operation of empire? This panel seeks to disrupt accepted narratives of imperial history, identity, and art by centering plants and vegetal life. Particular consideration will be given to papers that adopt ecocritical methodologies and interdisciplinary approaches to the environmental or plant humanities. We also welcome submissions with a broad geographical scope and across a range of media. This panel advocates for an expansive definition of art and empire that acknowledges the urgent need to enact decolonial strategies to confront this past and its ongoing consequences.