Lumen Benja Moretum reviewed Forest Euphoria by Patricia Kaishian
Identity Rooted (or Mycorrhized) in the Forest
4 stars
Forest Euphoria is a lyrical manifesto about how identity, culture, and nature are entangled. The book shows that nature laughs at binaries, whether human-made or scientific, and that queerness is not an exception but the exuberant rule of life.
Forest Euphoria also critiques research narratives — those supposedly “objective” frames that strip away personal voice and cultural context. Kaishian insists that science is richer when it acknowledges the identities of those who practice it. Overcoming these rigid narratives can spark paradigm shifts: just as the recognition of fungi as a separate kingdom in the 1960s transformed biology, so too can new ways of telling research stories transform how we understand both nature and ourselves.
In this book, identity is not simply rooted in the forest — it is mycorrhized, woven into the living networks of culture and ecology. Kaishian invites us to see research not as detached observation, …
Forest Euphoria is a lyrical manifesto about how identity, culture, and nature are entangled. The book shows that nature laughs at binaries, whether human-made or scientific, and that queerness is not an exception but the exuberant rule of life.
Forest Euphoria also critiques research narratives — those supposedly “objective” frames that strip away personal voice and cultural context. Kaishian insists that science is richer when it acknowledges the identities of those who practice it. Overcoming these rigid narratives can spark paradigm shifts: just as the recognition of fungi as a separate kingdom in the 1960s transformed biology, so too can new ways of telling research stories transform how we understand both nature and ourselves.
In this book, identity is not simply rooted in the forest — it is mycorrhized, woven into the living networks of culture and ecology. Kaishian invites us to see research not as detached observation, but as a deeply human, deeply entangled act of belonging.
