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, philosophy, literary theory, food studies, sound and music, Romanticism, Buddhism, and the eighteenth century. He teaches literature and ecology, Romantic-period literature, and literary theory. He has published nine books and sixty essays. CV

Publication Spotlight

The Ecological Thought (Harvard UP, 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.

 “Morton writes from inside the ecological thought, not as its cheerleader or architect but as a latter-day Romantic. The great strength of this book is its genre inventiveness, and its main contribution is its performance of a thinking keyed to our time and place, a thinking with clear and immediate ethical implications. The Ecological Thought is crucial right now.” —Marjorie Levinson, University of Michigan

“Picking up where his most obvious predecessors, Gregory Bateson and Felix Guattari, left off, Morton understands mental ecology as the ground zero of ecological thinking, as that which must be redressed before anything else and above all. Morton goes beyond both his forebears, however, in repairing the rift between science and the humanities, which the Enlightenment opened up and against which Romanticism reacted. Perhaps most pleasantly surprising, given its erudition, is that in its stylistic elegance The Ecological Thought is as satisfying to read as it is necessary to ponder.”—Vince Carducci, College for Creative Studies

Ecology Without Nature

(Harvard UP, 2007; paperback 2009)

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

Lectures, Blogs, Video

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)
“The Ecological Thought,” Lecture and Q&A at Cambridge University (2008). Get the lecture
Literature and the environment class (iTunes U).
Romantic Circles blog on ecology and culture.
Science article on green videoconferencing.
Slavoj Zizek on Ecology without Nature
Lecture on cognitive science, poetry, and animals
“Animals, Vegetables, Minerals, and Other Alien Beings,” (and iTunes U video).
Romanticism class (iTunes U).

My CV

More Publications

Ecology

• “Thinking Ecology: The Mesh, the Strange Stranger, and the Beautiful Soul,” Collapse 6 (2010), 265–93.
  
• “Ecology as Text, Text as Ecology,” Oxford Literary Review (forthcoming).
  
• “Ecology after Capitalism,” Polygraph 22 (forthcoming).
• “Queer Ecology,” PMLA (March, 2010), 1–19. 
• “The Dark Ecology of Elegy,” in Karen Weisman, ed., The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy (Oxford UP, 2010), 251–71.
  
• “Escritura Ecologica,” La Tempestad 10.65 (March 2009), 94–7.
  
• “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.

• "Byron's Manfred and Ecocriticism: Dark Ecology," in Jane Stabler, ed., Palgrave Advances in Byron Studies (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
• "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,” Romantic Praxis (2001).
• “Imperial Measures: Dune, Ecology and Romantic Consumerism,” Romanticism On the Net 21 (February 2001).  

  Runner-up, best essay, 2001.

• “Shelley's Green Desert,” Studies in Romanticism 35.3 (Fall, 1996), 409–30.  

 

Food

• 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).
  
• Special issue of Romanticism on food studies (12.1, 2006).
• "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.
• Ed., Cultures of Taste/Theories of Appetite: Eating Romanticism (Palgrave, 2004).
• Ed., Radical Food: The Culture and Politics of Eating and Drinking, 1780–1830 (Routledge, 2000).
  

 

Other

• "Hegel on Buddhism," Romantic Praxis (2007).
• Ed., The Cambridge Companion to Shelley (Cambridge UP, 2006).
• Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: A Sourcebook (Routledge, 2002).
  
• Ed., Radicalism in British Literary Culture, 1650-1830: From Revolution to Revolution (Cambridge UP, 2000).
  

Email:  tbmorton@ucdavis.edu