D.Phil. Magdalen College, Oxford University
BA Magdalen College, Oxford University
At UCD since 2003

Professor Morton's interests include literature and the environment, theories of ecology, food studies, sound and music, Romanticism, the eighteenth century, literary theory, and philosophy. He teaches literature and ecology, Romantic-period literature, and literary theory. He has published nine books and sixty essays. CV

Publication Spotlight

Ecology Without Nature

(Now also in paperback)

Timothy Morton sets out a seeming paradox: to have a properly ecological view, we must relinquish the idea of nature. Ranging widely in philosophy, culture, and history, Morton explores the value of art in imagining future environmental projects.

“Outstanding.”—Slavoj Zizek, In Defense of Lost Causes

“Dark ecology has the potential to be the punk rock or experimental pop of ecological thinking.”—Kasino A4

 “It isn’t [nature] itself that needs trashing — we’re doing a fine job of that already; it’s our way of thinking about it that needs to be structurally realigned ... it's an important book that, in a scant 205 pages of main text ... frames a debate that no doubt will be carried on for years to come.”—Vince Carducci, Pop Matters

“He practices what he theorizes: nothing is wasted in his argumentation.”—Emmanouil Aretoulakis, Synthesis

“Rigorous and unsettling ...  A more thoughtful reflection on the future of dwelling together in a vulnerable world would be hard to find.”—David L. Clark, McMaster University

Also try The Ecological Thought (available April 2010):
In this passionate, lucid, and surprising book, Timothy Morton argues that all forms of life are connected in a vast, entangling mesh. This interconnectedness penetrates all dimensions of life. No being, construct, or object can exist independently from the ecological entanglement, Morton contends, nor does “Nature” exist as an entity separate from the uglier or more synthetic elements of life. Realizing this interconnectedness is what Morton calls the ecological thought.

Lectures, Blogs, and More

Ecology without Nature: Ecology Philosophy, Science, Culture
An essay in the Danish journal ReThink on global warming and ideology.
“Creativity in the Face of Climate Change” (mp4)—full UCTV video. (YouTube)
“Ecology, Ideology, Politics” (Duke U). 
“Beautiful Soul Syndrome” (UCLA). (YouTube)
Literature and the environment class (also on iTunes U).
Romantic Circles blog on ecology and culture.
Science article on green videoconferencing.
Slavoj Zizek's lecture based on Ecology without Nature
Lecture on cognitive science, poetry, and animals
“Animals, Vegetables, Minerals, and Other Alien Beings,” video available on iTunes U.
“Creativity in the Face of Climate Change”(mp3)—my contribution to a symposium at UC Berkeley run by Robert Hass on October 30 2008.
Romanticism class (also on iTunes U).

My CV

Selected Publications and Lectures

• The Ecological Thought (Harvard UP, April 2010).
• “The Ecological Thought,” Lecture and Q&A in Cambridge University (2008). Get the lecture
• “Creativity in the Face of Climate Change.” Get the talk
  
• Ecology without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics (Harvard UP, 2007; paperback 2009).
• The Poetics of Spice: Romantic Consumerism and the Exotic (Cambridge UP, 2006).
  
• Shelley and the Revolution in Taste: The Body and the Natural World (Cambridge UP, 2006).
  
• Ed., The Cambridge Companion to Shelley (Cambridge UP, 2006).
• Special issue of Romanticism on food studies (12.1, 2006).
• Ed., Cultures of Taste/Theories of Appetite: Eating Romanticism (London and New York: Palgrave, 2004).
• Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: A Sourcebook (Routledge, 2002).
  
• Ed., Radicalism in British Literary Culture, 1650-1830: From Revolution to Revolution (Cambridge UP, 2000). 
• Ed., Radical Food: The Culture and Politics of Eating and Drinking, 1780–1830 (Routledge, 2000).
  
• “Queer Ecology,” PMLA (forthcoming).
  
• “Writing Ecology,” La Tempestad (forthcoming).
  
• “Ecologocentrism: Unworking Animals,” SubStance 37.3 (2008), 37–61.
  
• “Of Matter and Meter: Environmental Form in Coleridge's ‘Effusion 35’ and ‘The Eolian Harp’,” Literature Compass Romanticism 5.2 (January, 2008), 310–55. 
  
• “John Clare's Dark Ecology,” Studies in Romanticism 47.2 (Summer, 2008), 179-93. Winner of the Keats-Shelley Association Prize for the best essay of 2008.
  
• "Hegel on Buddhism," in Romantic Praxis (2007).
• "Byron's Manfred and Ecocriticism: Dark Ecology," in Jane Stabler, ed., Palgrave Advances in Byron Studies (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
• "Joseph Ritson, Percy Shelley and the Making of Romantic Vegetarianism," Romanticism 12.1 (2006): 52-61.
• "Food Studies in the Romantic Period:(S)mashing History," Romanticism 12.1 (2006): 1-4.
• "Percy Shelley, Snacker Poet," Moving Worlds: A Journal of Transcultural Writings 6.2 (2006): 22-9.
• "Environmentalism," in Nicholas Roe, ed., Romanticism: An Oxford Guide (Oxford UP, 2005), 696-707.
• "Wordsworth Digs the Lawn," European Romantic Review 15.2 (2004): 317-27.
• “Why Ambient Poetics?,” The Wordsworth Circle 33.1 (Winter, 2002), 52–6.
• “ ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ as an Ambient Poem; a Study of a Dialectical Image; with Some Remarks on Coleridge and Wordsworth,” in James McKusick, ed., “Romanticism and Ecology,” Romantic Praxis (November, 2001).  
  
• “Imperial Measures: Dune, Ecology and Romantic Consumerism,” in Robert Corbett, ed., “Romanticism and Science Fictions,” Romanticism On the Net 21 (February 2001). 
  
• “Shelley's Green Desert,” in Jonathan Bate, ed., Studies in Romanticism 35.3 (Fall, 1996), 409–30. 
  

Email:  tbmorton@ucdavis.edu