Matthew Hall’s work examines the relationships between human beings and plants. Originally trained as a botanist at the University of Edinburgh, Matthew worked for several years as a Research Scientist at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. There he co-founded a research centre, and worked on dozens of research and conservation projects across the Middle East, including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen. After gaining his PhD in Environmental Philosophy from the Australian National University, Matthew’s work became more philosophical in nature. In 2011, he published the book Plants as Persons: a Philosophical Botany (SUNY Press, 2011), which argues for the inclusion of plants within human moral consideration. Plants as Persons is now widely regarded as a seminal work in the field. Matthew’s new book The Imagination of Plants: A Book of Botanical Mythology (SUNY Press, 2019) examines how the world’s mythological traditions perceive and relate to the plant kingdom. He uses these myths to create a world in which human beings and plants share common and enduring bonds of kinship, a world in which plants turn into humans and humans into plants, a world in which plant life is sentient and communicative.
