Expanding Our Sense of Ecofascism: Everyday Ecofascism with Alex Menrisky

Kaja sat down with Lindsay and I this month to discuss how scholars typically focus on the "were" in the term werewolf, but she wants us to bring more focus to the "wolf" aspect. Why are we fascinated by the prospect of becoming a wolf, and why do coyotes captivate us when they come into cities? In her new book, The Ecogothic Werewolf in Literature: Wolves, Woods and Wilderness, she tells us what werewolves tell us about ourselves and about wolves themselves. Recorded right after Halloween, this episode is a spooky one!   For more of Kaja:   Twitter: @KajaFranck Email: [email protected]   ASLE EcoCast: If you have an idea for an episode, please submit your proposal here: https://forms.gle/Y1S1eP9yXxcNkgWHA   Twitter: @ASLE_EcoCast Lindsay Jolivette: @lin_jolivette Alex Tischer: @ak_tischer   If you’re enjoying the show, please consider subscribing, sharing, and writing reviews on your favorite podcast platform(s)!   Episode recorded November 5, 2025 CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

What is ecofascism and who "is" ecofascist or "does" ecofascism? Alex Menrisky walks us through why his new book is titled "Everyday Ecofascism," or the ways that ecofascism is not solely a far-right governmental structure but a genre, a mode of storytelling. This means that ecofascism emerges through not just laws and political leaders but through quotidian acts and utterances by citizens and politicians alike. Listen in as he walks us through representations of land, food, drugs, tools, and more that often utilize both ecological visions of catastrophe and alarm with fascist thought.   For more of Alex Menrisky:   Email: [email protected] Uconn Faculty Page: https://english.uconn.edu/person/alex-menrisky/   ASLE EcoCast: If you have an idea for an episode, please submit your proposal here: https://forms.gle/Y1S1eP9yXxcNkgWHA   Twitter: @ASLE_EcoCast Lindsay Jolivette: @lin_jolivette Alex Tischer: @ak_tischer   If you’re enjoying the show, please consider subscribing, sharing, and writing reviews on your favorite podcast platform(s)!   Episode recorded October 17, 2025 CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

This month we had a fascinating conversation with Bart Welling, whose presentation at the ASLE Conference this last summer was caught by Lindsay! Bart's research was informed by his own road trip around the country, a month-long, 12,000-mile trip. This chat was particularly special as Bart is still completing his book project, and we aim to have more episodes in the future with more research-in-progress!   Bart walked us through his new book project, "Resisting Energy: The Long Struggle Against Irresponsible Power," that looks at the modern debates over fossil fuels and energy, arguing we need to rethink energy (including "clean" energy) with the laborers who are often treated as dispensable.     For more of Bart Welling:   Email: [email protected]   ASLE EcoCast: If you have an idea for an episode, please submit your proposal here: https://forms.gle/Y1S1eP9yXxcNkgWHA   Twitter: @ASLE_EcoCast Lindsay Jolivette: @lin_jolivette Alex Tischer: @ak_tischer   If you’re enjoying the show, please consider subscribing, sharing, and writing reviews on your favorite podcast platform(s)!   Episode recorded September 26nd, 2025 CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

This month we sat down with Jon Pitt to discuss his new book "Botanical Imagination: Rethinking Plants in Modern Japan." The book spans Japanese writers and filmmakers from the 1930s to today whose works all ask a similar question: What would it mean for humans to be more like plants? Looking at the ways that this question informed critiques of colonialism and even today immigration in these works, Pitt labels how these authors take up the plasticity of plants "becoming botanical."   This episode is a great companion piece to our last episode with Rachel DiNitto on Japanese Ecocinema!   For more of Jon Pitt:   Email: [email protected]   ASLE EcoCast: If you have an idea for an episode, please submit your proposal here: https://forms.gle/Y1S1eP9yXxcNkgWHA   Twitter: @ASLE_EcoCast Lindsay Jolivette: @lin_jolivette Alex Tischer: @ak_tischer   If you’re enjoying the show, please consider subscribing, sharing, and writing reviews on your favorite podcast platform(s)!   Episode recorded August 22nd, 2025 CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

For this month’s episode, we sat down with Rachel DiNitto to discuss the pioneering edited volume Eco-Disasters in Japanese Cinema (2024) and her own chapter in it on "Toxicoscapes." With thematic coverage that ranges from contaminated childhoods, to nuclear anxiety, and all the way to apocalyptic futures, this manuscript both expands the overall definition of “eco-disaster” and focuses in on the specificity of the Japanese context. Join us for a conversation that offers new perspectives to ecocinema enthusiasts in general and scholars of Japanese environments alike! For more from Rachel: https://www.racheldinitto.com/ ASLE EcoCast: If you have an idea for an episode, please submit your proposal here: https://forms.gle/Y1S1eP9yXxcNkgWHA   Twitter: @ASLE_EcoCast Lindsay Jolivette: @lin_jolivette Alex Tischer: @ak_tischer Bluesky: @asleecocast.bsky.social If you’re enjoying the show, please consider subscribing, sharing, and writing reviews on your favorite podcast platform(s)! Episode recorded June 13th, 2025. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

In this episode, Alex sat down with Amanda Baugh to chat about her new book, Falling in Love with Nature: The Values of Latinx Catholic Environmentalism. An ethnographic study of Hispanic Catholics, Baugh's book argues to widen the definition of environmentalism to include those who commit more sustainable actions (recycling, public transportation) not because of an express desire to be an environmentalist, but because of pious attention to loving nature in order to uphold one's faith. Spurred by a Public Religion Research Institute survey that found that Hispanic Catholics were more concerned about climate change than any other religious focus group, Baugh pushes against notions of the environmentalism of the poor. The idea that impoverished people practice more sustainable living due to their class, Baugh instead analyzes their faith. Recorded on the day of the conclave for a new Pope, this is a perfect companion piece to last month's episode with Kate Rigby!   For more of Amanda Baugh:   Website: amandajbaugh.com   Email: [email protected]   ASLE EcoCast: If you have an idea for an episode, please submit your proposal here: https://forms.gle/Y1S1eP9yXxcNkgWHA   Twitter: @ASLE_EcoCast Lindsay Jolivette: @lin_jolivette Alex Tischer: @ak_tischer   If you’re enjoying the show, please consider subscribing, sharing, and writing reviews on your favorite podcast platform(s)! Episode recorded May 7, 2025 CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

For this episode, we sat down with Kate Rigby to discuss her new book Meditations on Creation in an Era of Extinction. The text is a reclaiming of the ancient theological meditation form, the hexameron, to consider the climate crisis and mass extinction. Meditating on a day of creation in each chapter, she tells us about the insights each day of creation has for the Anthropocene like contemplative practices in the First Day and the move from a "Kingdom" to a "Kindom" of species in the Fifth Day. This episode and the next will be on religion and ecology, a fitting focus on the topic at a time of a new Pope!   For more of Kate Rigby:   Website: https://mesh.uni-koeln.de/   Guest Magpie Recommendation: Magpie Whisperer - https://www.shop.themagpiewhisperer.com/   ASLE EcoCast: If you have an idea for an episode, please submit your proposal here: https://forms.gle/Y1S1eP9yXxcNkgWHA   Twitter: @ASLE_EcoCast Lindsay Jolivette: @lin_jolivette Alex Tischer: @ak_tischer   If you’re enjoying the show, please consider subscribing, sharing, and writing reviews on your favorite podcast platform(s)! Episode recorded April 25, 2025 CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

We sat down with Melody Jue for a second episode to discuss her new work Coralations, a fascinating deep dive into the coral we know and the coral we need to know. Though tropical corals inundate perceptions of coral, there are other deep water and cold water coral that have different connections or coralations to anthropogenic climate change. By rethinking "normative coral," new media across photography, sci fi, and more come into the light.   For more about Melody Jue:   Website: Melodyjue.info Email: [email protected]   Guest Reading Recommendations:  a book of waves - Stefan Helmreich   ASLE EcoCast: If you have an idea for an episode, please submit your proposal here: https://forms.gle/Y1S1eP9yXxcNkgWHA   Twitter: @ASLE_EcoCast Lindsay Jolivette: @lin_jolivette Alex Tischer: @ak_tischer   If you’re enjoying the show, please consider subscribing, sharing, and writing reviews on your favorite podcast platform(s)! Episode recorded March 17, 2025 CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

This month's episode is a podcast about a podcast! We sat down with Nate Otjen and Jessica Ng, two of the leaders of the audio story series "Mining for the Climate," to discuss the audio documentary series and its investigation of the rhetoric arguing for continued mining as essential to the "green transition." The first season, set in Gaston County, North Carolina, details the controversy surrounding a proposed lithium mine in the county, and the upcoming second season takes listeners to Nevada to discuss the Thacker Pass Lithium Mine. We discuss their creation process, how they constructed the narrative across five episodes, learn some updates on Gaston County since the first season, and explore the second season's auditory, photographic, and cartographic elements.   For more about Mining for the Climate:   Email: [email protected] [email protected] Website: Bluelabmedia.org   Guest Reading Recommendations: Benedetta Brevini's AI Scholarship Kohei Saito's Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto   ASLE EcoCast: If you have an idea for an episode, please submit your proposal here: https://forms.gle/Y1S1eP9yXxcNkgWHA   Twitter: @ASLE_EcoCast Lindsay Jolivette: @lin_jolivette Alex Tischer: @ak_tischer   If you’re enjoying the show, please consider subscribing, sharing, and writing reviews on your favorite podcast platform(s)! Episode recorded February 28, 2025 CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

In this month's episode, we spoke with Sarah Dimick about her new book Unseasonable: Climate Change in Global Literatures. It connects literature and the environment through an idea of seasonality and rhythm. Climate change can be understood as a time of unseasonableness, of environmental events and cycles being outside normal rhythms of time. Living today is defined by this arrhythmia, and Sarah charts new territory in studying literature for its reflections of this cyclicality, what she calls literary phenology.   For more from Sarah Dimick:   Email: [email protected]   ASLE EcoCast: If you have an idea for an episode, please submit your proposal here: https://forms.gle/Y1S1eP9yXxcNkgWHA   Twitter: @ASLE_EcoCast Lindsay Jolivette: @lin_jolivette Alex Tischer: @ak_tischer   If you’re enjoying the show, please consider subscribing, sharing, and writing reviews on your favorite podcast platform(s)!   Episode recorded January 30, 2025   CC BY-NC-ND 4.0