A new forum for interdisciplinary plant studies

Plant Perspectives

A Subscribe-to-Open Journal

Call for Papers

We're pleased to announce an Open Call for Papers for 'Plant Perspectives'. Full details are here.

Aims and Scope

Plant Perspectives is a new forum, grounded in interdisciplinary plant studies, to explore plant–human interactions in all spatial, temporal and cultural contexts. Plants are the central actors here, and the journal encourages new directions in the study of sensory, instrumental and affective entanglements between human and vegetal spheres. Papers will address a wide variety of subjects, including but by no means limited to: horticulture and arboriculture; colonialism and other power asymmetries; medicine, health and care; governance, rights and ethics; art and literature; film and media; heritage and leisure; traditional ecological knowledge; conservation and environmental change; and scientific communication. Taking ‘environmental humanities’ as its foundation, the journal warmly invites contributions from those working in academic disciplines such as anthropology, geography, history, literary studies, philosophy and social sciences; from those whose work transcends traditional disciplinary classifications or extends towards the natural sciences; and from those outside the academy, for example garden and forest practitioners, artists, creative writers and activists. Rigorous standards of double-anonymous peer review will apply to research articles, but the journal will also have sections showcasing a range of non-traditional forms (interviews, narrative fiction and non-fiction, poetry, visual and multimedia essays), subject to appropriate processes of evaluation. Plant Perspectives will thus be a place where the paths of different discourses cross and their branches intertwine, where scholars and practitioners with an interest in plants can develop and hone new thinking and where – crucially – the plant itself is always centre stage.

The journal publishes both double blind peer reviewed papers and invited material.

Papers should be submitted using our ONLINE SUBMISSION SYSTEM

Subscribe to Open

Plant Perspectives is conceived as open access. For 2024, we are seeking to cover the journal's production costs without charging author fees through a Subscribe-to-Open offer.

Plant Perspectives is in its launch phase and we can guarantee no page charges/APCs until at least the end of 2024.

Even if the journal remains gated under S2O in future, author fees would only ever apply if the author wishes to convert their own article to OA.

Values and Principles

The journal will embed principles of inclusion and diversity, manifested in the editorial board, peer review policies and the Diamond Open Access model, which involves no fees to either readers or contributors. The White Horse Press is committed to the fair treatment of all authors, editors and reviewers, and particularly concerned to support Early Career Researchers. Our goal is to forge lasting relationships, based on mutual respect. Plant Perspectives adheres to the publication standards and ethics shared by all White Horse Press publications. The submission process will request multi-authored papers to attach a statement of how the work was divided between the authors and how the order of authors has been decided. It is important to foster communication between academic communities in different regions and working in different languages. The journal will welcome contributions first published in languages other than English and WHP will offer support in honing the English.

EDITORIAL TEAM

Editor: John Charles Ryan
  Adjunct Associate Professor, Southern Cross University
  Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Nulungu Institute, University of Notre Dame, Australia

Deputy Editor: Isis Brook
  Visiting Research Fellow, Bath Spa University

Associate Editors

Afshin Akhtar-Khavari Professor of International Law, Queensland University of Technology (Australia)
Interdisciplinary research on trees, plants and asking questions about what their ability to solve problems means for the law; law, governance and environmental humanities

Giovanni Aloi School of the Art Institute of Chicago / editor of Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture
Plants in contemporary art; history of plants; representations across time and cultures; plants in visual culture; bio art involving plants; plants and climate change; plants and queer ecologies

Clare Hickman Environmental and Medical History, Newcastle University
Historic gardens and landscapes; past botanic collecting and collections; cultural histories of natural spaces and plants that have been classed as having therapeutic properties

Karen Jones Professor of History, University of Kent
Designed landscapes; parks and gardens; plant activism

Diego Molina Royal Holloway, University of London
Plant-human interactions in Latin America; environmental history of plants and botanical science (e.g. travellers, scientific representation of plants, botany and power); plants in cities (especially in the tropics); photography and plants

Sumana Roy Associate Professor, Creative Writing, Ashoka University
Indian plant humanities; plant poetics

Jon Pitt East Asian Studies Department, University of California, Irvine
Entanglements of plant life and various forms of literature: fiction, poetry, SF, horror, nature writing, etc.; film (narrative, documentary, experimental) and sound media; East Asia

Laura Pustarfi California Institute of Integral Studies
Trees; Continental philosophy; ethics; psychedelic plants

Barry Taylor Archaeology, University of Chester
Archaeobotany and palaeoecology; theoretical perspectives on human-plant relationships in the human past

Book Reviews Editors

Benjamin Cooke Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University, Melbourne
Subarna De Chair Group Contemporary History, University of Groningen, Netherlands

FULL EDITORIAL BOARD

ISSN: 2753-3603 (Online, OPEN ACCESS)