91AV

Patrícia Vieira will describe the main features of the extractivist paradigm that has dominated the Western approach to the Amazon River Basin as a source of material and immaterial commodities: as a repository of rubber, minerals and oil, as the “lungs of the world,” as a “carbon sink,” or as a storehouse of biodiversity that can be used for scientific and medical purposes. Professor Vieira will then turn to alternative views of the rainforest and, through Indigenous literature and art, show how Amazonian peoples see their region as a place of entangled lives, where plants, animals, waters, spirits, and other beings form interspecies communities. Ultimately, she will reflect on the ways in which Amazonian Indigenous thought and praxis can contribute ideas to address the current environmental crisis and, as Yanomami shaman Davi Kopenawa puts it, prevent the sky from falling on human heads.

Biography

Patrícia Vieira is a research professor at the Center for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra in Portugal, where she leads the ECO-Amazon project, which gives voice to animals and plants and reveals the

interdependence of humans and more-than-humans. During the spring 2026 semester, Professor Vieira is serving as the Hélio and Amélia Pedroso/Luso-American Development Foundation Endowed Chair in Portuguese Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth.

Previously, she has taught at Georgetown University, Harvard University, the University of Leeds, and the University of California-Santa Barbara.

She is the author or editor of more than a dozen books, including such titles as The Mind of Plants: Narratives of Vegetal Intelligence, The Language of Plants: Science, Philosophy, Literature, and States of Grace: Utopia in Brazilian Culture, as well as dozens of book chapters, journal articles, and op-eds. She has delivered invited talks around the world.

Professor Vieira is currently finishing a book titled Zoophytography: Animals and Plants in Amazonian Cultural Productions, which is due for publication by the University Press of Florida. The book focuses on texts, films and artworks that depict the Amazon River Basin, a region known for its biodiversity, that is being threatened by extractive industries and large-scale forest fires. The main argument is that more-than-human forms of existence leave traces of themselves in human cultural life, becoming co-creators of books, cinema, and art that portray Amazonian fauna and flora. The book uncovers these vegetal and animal inscriptions, thus decentering humanity as the sole source of meaning-making, and seeks to learn from more-than-human beings.

Suggested Reading

Ryan, John C., et al. The Mind of Plants: Narratives of Vegetal Intelligence. Synergetic Press, 2022.

Vieira, Patricia. The Environment in Brazilian Culture: Literature, Cinema, and the Arts. University of Florida Press, 2025.