This year’s ICFA has been a blast. This is my third time at this conference, and I’m always blown away by how intelligent and friendly the attendees are. There are so many good papers that it would be impossible to mention them all, but there was one that was so smart and so much fun that it must be shared: Timothy Miller’s “Lives of the Monster Plants: The Revenge of the Vegetable in the Age of Animal Studies.” Miller connected monster plants to anxieties about Darwinian evolution and offered up some fantastic specimens. In addition to the usual green-leafed suspects (in, e.g., Little Shop of Horrors, Day of the Triffids, Invasion of the Body Snatchers) Miller excavated some real gems. My favorite was Paul Bunyan Fights the Monster Plants. I will be ordering this book immediately. I also appreciated Miller’s linking of plant life to animal studies—a good reminder of the interconnectedness of all things. Great stuff!
