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…

In the past few weeks, I’ve been turning to music as a way to think about how culture shapes our relationship to the natural world – or perhaps, rather, how nature shapes our culture.  After attending a concert of a string quartet, I started thinking about the connection between wood and music, and, by extension,…

After attending a concert of the Kronos Quartet in NYC with my husband, I started thinking about the wood that was vibrating and delivering such delicious sounds to my ears. Music, it seemed, was yet another gift we owed to the trees. Not being a musician myself, I needed to turn to someone with greater…