Moving on from fairy-tale wolves to actual wolves, I speak to Maggie Howell, the Director of The Wolf Conservation Center. I was not surprised that Maggie Howell dispelled certain misconceptions (wolves don’t pose a threat to humans, at least under normal circumstances). But I was surprised to encounter familiar themes. Pluskowski, whom I interviewed for…

How did the wolf come to be “carnivore incarnate”? Why do we project our own beastliness onto wolves? With the help of Maria Tatar, Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures and of Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University, and Aleksander Pluskowski, Associate Professor of Archeology at  the University of Reading and author of the fascinating…

This August, while visiting my family, in Ojai, California, I decided to interview my brother, Philip Asquith, Master Miller of Ojai Olive Oil. This small-batch, very-high-quality (if I say so myself) olive oil company is the legacy of my father, Ron Asquith, who bought a funny-shaped piece of land at the East End of the…

Our byline is “exploring how culture shapes our relationship to the natural world,” but what exactly is “culture?” Raymond Williams, one of the founders of cultural studies calls culture one of the two or three most difficult words in the English language and nature the most complex. With the help of Michael Ziser, Associate Professor…