Ecology Now!

A Conversation with Nicole Seymour

In discussion with Christopher Schaberg

Washington University in St. Louis, February 2024.

Ecology Now! was a series of public events presented by the Program in Public Scholarship in partnership with the Center for the Environment, the Center for the Humanities, the Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, and Science in the Public Square (funded by Incubator for Transdisciplinary Futures). With the objective to frame our relationship with the environment from new, unexpected perspectives, such as visual art, religion, public health, and cultural studies, the series gave voice to a range of scholars grappling with our rapidly changing environment.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Christopher Schaberg

You came to Washington University in St. Louis to talk about your recent Object Lessons book Glitter. This book came out a couple years ago now, but there’s something about the topic that seems—if not evergreen exactly, then at least profusive. Can you talk a bit about how your book has traveled or what you’ve been surprised by since Glitter was published?

Nicole Seymour

Yes, in Glitter I delve into that “evergreen-ness”—there’s a scientific theory that humans are drawn to sparkle and shine due to an evolutionary impulse to find water. And glittery things have always existed in nature, from mica in rock formations to the phenomenon of light bouncing off snow. So, the nice thing about writing the book is that I didn’t have to worry about its topic being too niche or becoming passé!

As for your actual question, I’ve been so lucky that Glitter has wound up in some very interesting hands. I recently Zoomed with two curators at the Museum of Art & Industry in Hamburg, Germany, who said that the book inspired them to develop the first-ever museum exhibit dedicated to glitter! If by any wild chance someone reading this is going to be in Hamburg from February to October in 2025, please check it out.

CS

At the beginning of your presentation, you spoke about how your institution, Cal State Fullerton, has shaped your research and teaching interests. Could you elaborate on this, and perhaps also talk about how your geographical place or region has informed your work?

NS

Here, I have to acknowledge Matt Brim’s excellent book, Poor Queer Studies: Confronting Elitism in the University, which points out that one’s scholarship always emerges from particular structural conditions—whether that be the size of your research budget (or lack thereof), your course load, your students’ commute time, etc.—and that we academics need to start talking openly about those conditions and how they vary. So that prompted me to start sharing information about where I’m coming from—which is an institution with significant working-class, first-generation, and Latiné populations—when I give talks elsewhere.

Brim also suggests that academics engage the (queer) histories of their own institutions. That inspired me to interview a professor emeritus from my department, who was one of the first openly gay faculty on campus in the late 60s and early 70s. He established a scholarship in honor of another out gay faculty member who passed on, which we still distribute. So the LGBTQ+ history of Fullerton is, in that way, connected to its class history. I also just found out that the term “steampunk” was invented at Cal State Fullerton! Even though I’ve been here for 10 years, I had no idea about these things. There’s so much to learn about our own institutions.

CS

Your work engages ecology from an oblique angle. How did you develop your particular style of environmental criticism?

NS

As a graduate student, I was very influenced by queer theory—specifically, the witty, arch, and ironic folks like Lee Edelman and Jack Halberstam who dominated my reading lists. When I got more into ecocriticism, I felt as if that sort of flair or sensibility was missing from the field. And with that, my niche career was born! In all seriousness, though, my first book (Strange Natures: Futurity, Empathy, and the Queer Ecological Imagination) emerged from the recognition that the two fields were engaged in very similar questions, such as what counts as “natural,” but coming at them from very different places, including but certainly not limited to writing style. My goal was to put the two fields into deeper conversation and to show how environmental issues are queer issues, and queer issues are environmental issues.

CS

After your glitter presentation, I found you speaking with the writer and environmental scholar Jenny Price, who is a public scholar and research fellow in our Sam Fox School of Art and Architecture. I was pleasantly shocked because I am a longtime fan of Price’s work, and I didn’t even realize she was here (I have only been at WashU since June 2023). What’s your history with Jenny Price?

NS

Jenny and I first met as fellows at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich, Germany about 10 years ago. We were all required to give a public presentation on our work, and I believe she spoke about co-developing the Our Malibu Beaches app—which helps citizens figure out how to access public beaches that evil rich people (#NotAllRichPeople) in Malibu have illegally blocked with fences and signs. I remember that she started out in regular clothes, then walked to a closet at the back of the room, and then emerged wearing a park ranger costume. I knew I had found a kindred spirit—one who understands that play, humor, and even a little light drag might be the perfect modes for approaching environmental issues. I also interviewed her once for Public Books, which was a blast!

CS

We called this series of speakers Ecology Now! to signal the urgency of the topic. One of the groups we collaborated with on these events is called Science in the Public Square, a group of scholars interested in science communication and building public trust in research and academic expertise. This is in line with how we understand public scholarship. And so I’m wondering, how would you describe Glitter as a piece of public scholarship? What does a book of this scope and length do differently than a monograph or an academic article?

NS

I recently told Laura Perry at your Center for the Humanities that writing Glitter for a public audience felt and looked very different from a monograph or academic article. I let myself run totally wild, knowing that the serious posturing of academic writing wasn’t in effect. I tried to write in ways that gave me (and hopefully my audience) pleasure, using techniques like narrative present tense, personal anecdotes, listing, alliteration, and even rhyming. I also tried to create pleasure around the writing process itself. So I selected one typeface that I found to be beautiful, in which I wrote the whole manuscript. Of course, it was ultimately published in the standard typeface they use for the whole book series, but for my two years of drafting I used Papyrus. Just kidding! I used Avenir. I don’t recall how conscious I was of it at the time, but there’s obviously a connection between the arguably indulgent and frivolous nature of some of these writing modes and the indulgent and frivolous nature of glitter.