Serena Ferrando, Assistant Professor of Environmental Humanities and Italian, School of International Letters and Cultures in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is lead author on Channeling Nature: Plants, Animals and Water in Italian Poetry, a new publication in University of Toronto Press.
Says Ferrando: What if poetry could teach us to live differently – alongside plants, animals, and water? Channeling Nature: Plants, Animals, and Water in Italian Poetry explores how twentieth-century Italian literature can be a powerful medium for ecological thought.
A brief summary follows:
Through close readings of poets like Andrea Zanzotto, Daria Menicanti, and Milo De Angelis, environmental and Italian studies professor Serena Ferrando reveals how poetry gives voice to the more-than-human world and models new forms of multispecies cohabitation, resistance, and care. Moving beyond traditional symbolism, the book shows how poetic language channels the agency of nature itself, shaping environmental sensibilities and ethical engagement. Drawing on ecocriticism, environmental humanities, and Italian literary studies, Ferrando combines literary analysis with transdisciplinary insight to highlight the ethical, aesthetic, and philosophical significance of poetry’s engagement with nature.
Organized around the bodies of plants, animals, and water, the book uncovers surprising connections between humans and the non-human world. Ultimately, Channeling Nature argues that poetry’s marginality and contemplative pace foster a unique ecological attention – one rooted in empathy and imagination, inspiring more sustainable ways of living.
Ferrando offers the following acknowledgments:
Too many to mention, so I will limit them to the ASU ecosystem: Jeffrey J. Cohen and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at ASU; the Fellows Program of the Institute for Humanities Research at ASU; Sara Beaudrie, Nina Berman, and Mike Tueller in SILC at ASU; Ron Broglio at the Humanities Institute at ASU.
