Mary Kuhn

Mary Kuhn is an associate professor in the English Department with specialties in 19th-century American literature and the environmental humanities. Her first book, The Garden Politic, was published in February 2023 by NYU Press. It considers the political and cultural significance of plants in nineteenth-century America, arguing for a more capacious understanding of 19th century environmental thought and practice. Other publications have appeared in journals such as PMLA, ELH, and American Literature. Her current research includes a cultural history of the toxic paint and pesticide known as Paris Green.

PUBLICATIONS:

Books:

Kuhn, Mary. The Garden Politic: Global Plants and Botanical Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century America. New York University Press, 2023.

Peer-reviewed Articles:

Kuhn, Mary. “Chesnutt, Turpentine, and the Political Ecology of White Supremacy”. PMLA, vol. 136, no. 1, 2021, pp. 39-54.

Kuhn, Mary. “Dickinson and the Politics of Plant Sensibility”. ELH, vol. 85, no. 1, 2018, pp. 141-70.

Kuhn, Mary. “Loving the Plant that Saves You”. Common-Place: The Interactive Journal of Early American Life, vol. 17, no. 4, 2017.

Kuhn, Mary. “Garden Variety: Botany and Multiplicity in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Abolitionism”. American Literature, vol. 87, no. 3, 2015, pp. 489-16, https://doi.org/10.1215/00029831-3149345.

Book Chapters:

Kuhn, Mary. “Wild only like myself": Thoreau at Home with Plants”. Dispersion: Thoreau and Vegetal Thought, edited by Branka Arsić, Bloomsbury, 2021.