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Elaine Ayers

@eayers0.bsky.social
3.4K followers 3K following 895 posts

Historian of science, collecting, plants + museums // professor at Yale // PhD in History of Science from Princeton // writing books // contr. ed. at Public Domain Review // elaineayers.com

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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
We’ve had to be creative + plan far in advance, but I love taking my big lecture class to collections so they can still do hands-on work, access Yale’s resources, see cool stuff + meet staff members even though it’s soo much harder to do with these numbers.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
🌿📚🌿 And the loveliest trip to the herbarium of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh - not my first trip there, but so fun to go with other historians of botany 🌿📚🌿
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
🐡🐍🐡 Wet collections from the National Museum’s off-site storage (this was such a fun trip) 🐡🐍🐡
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
🪲🪰🪲 Some belated photos from Scotland to close out the summer: insect collections at the off-site storage at the National Museum 🪲🪰🪲
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
I’m sorry, but I can’t. Do we just live in Veep now (unbelievably great show), except that this is both page news and we’re completely ignoring the who even knows how many deaths since Trump took office? We’re doing Taylor Swift level lore now? (Yes, she hides in suitcases).
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
End of summer wrapping up as it usually does. Can’t believe the semester is starting so soon.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
🌿🍄🌿 Finally went into the office + picked up my copy of Thinking With Plants + Fungi (and some other books). What a beautiful, colorful, joyful celebration of nature, history + science. Order your own copy + read my article on moss below (or on Amazon). 🌿🍄🌿 www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
🌿📚🏛️ Are you nursing an #ESHS-HSS hangover from last night's cèilidh? Are you burned out from seeing everyone you know? Come to my talk about plants + collections at 9:15 in the museum this morning and I promise you can have a snooze. All are welcome! 🌿📚🏛️
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Writing my talk for HSS and about to hop on a plane - this is gonna be a good one. Catch me Weds morning on the Collections Stories in Indo-Pacific Worlds symposium at the National Museum of Scotland (and the many pub nights) - can't wait to see so many friends.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Only way to get through this heat with a bored, arthritic dog: sunset swims.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Summer so far (dogs, hiking, swimming, taxidermy, slow mornings, falling in love with the world of lures).
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
Little Lyme warrior (we refuse to abandon our hikes + swims even though the ticks, terrible dog owners, and work loads are out of control).
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
(Good excuse to force myself to finish up the long overdue publications on this project)
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
New Haven, CT.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
Ah yes, Eli Yale the parrot. Named after a slave trader, administrator (to put it lightly) in the British Empire, and the namesake of my institution. You can't make it up. Add this to my list of "I guess I'll write this when I'm done with my actual job." WTF en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elihu_Y...
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
I made it through the school year, but more importantly Franklin made it through the school year. He’s being treated for Lyme, but he’s a trooper who drags me on hikes / swims every morning. It’s been a hard one.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
A relaxing, beautiful night before seniors' grades are due! (Actually doesn't affect my class much, but jfc)
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Students going from your class on eugenics to my class on colonialism (literally)
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Could not be more excited about this event at the Peabody: BOX THINGS: a rountable with @shannonmattern.bsky.social, Deborah Schneiderman, Karen Rader + Ivana Dizdar. 5/5, 5-7PM, thinking through "what if the box is not only a container of knowledge, but one of its primary analytic forms?"
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
🌿...and students created their own illustrations + creative work in conversation with the primary sources and secondary sources from the syllabus, writing about their processes while doing hands-on, embodied work. The results were stunning, and I'll share them with you when I receive permission.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
🌿 Finally, this is the last week! Tomorrow we're talking about future paths in plant research (both in the humanities + sciences), and on Thurs we're spending a day at the botanical garden because we deserve it.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
🌿 Last week: took advantage of the gorgeous weather to think through lessons from the plant + fungal world - queerness, kinship, anti-capitalism, nonhuman-centric time, dormancy, rest, resilience, symbiosis. We spent a beautiful day on the Yale Farm looking at crops, soil, fungi, and commitment. ❤️
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
🌿 Our final historical week on ethnobotany (esp. in the Amazon), using Richard Evans Schultes as a case study + focusing in on psychedelics. I have an article on Schultes + his legacy coming out soon, so stay tuned! Lots this semester on the thin line between plant-based medicines, drugs + poisons.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
🌿 20thC plant breeding, genetic research + patenting through discussions of the military-industrial complex, using case studies from American agriculture (corn!) and the rising pharmaceutical industry (hoodia, yams, and more). This week was heavy on legal history, because it's WEIRD.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
🌿 After break, a big week (that needs to be split into 2 next year). Eugenics in the American conservation movement through redwoods campaigns + ideas of "pristine" nature; attacks on "invasive" species + biological warfare amidst anti-immigration policy. This was the most popular week yet.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
🌿 Last week before break: studies of evolution in plants, feat. the OGs - Charles Darwin + Joseph Dalton Hooker. Plant carnivory, movement, parasitism, strange orchids, + paleobotany. Finished with a fun class on plants in 19thC scifi through H.G. Wells, Rappacini's Daughter, and more.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
🌿 Fully into the 19thC for my favorite week - the rise of imperial gardens + colonial collecting (aka my book project). Desires for "exotic" species, commercial collectors take hold, and botanical "science" struggles to define itself. Wardian cases + glass technology feature heavily.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
🌿 Then into abortion history, focusing first on enslaved women's use of plants as abortifacients in the 18thC Atlantic World as forms of resistance, and then into 19thC British + American debates over emmenagogues + legal concerns around controlling women's bodies. Always a popular week.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
🌿 Focused in on enslavement + plantation agriculture, bringing in questions not just of violence + monocropping but of resistance, poisons, maroon communities, and herbalism in the Caribbean. Lucky to have a grad student (Thomas Anderson) working on exactly this.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
🌿 Then to the "field" to think through bioprospecting, acclimatization, illustration, and the search for drugs, often through complex interactions between colonial agents, collectors, and enslaved + Indigenous experts and healers in shifting power dynamics.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
🌿 Moved into the 18thC to talk about classification, Linnaeus's sexual system, boxes + binaries, and the solidification of herbaria as taxonomic tools within a growing imperial context. Always a sleeper hit favorite, esp for students interested in sex + gender.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
🌿 In our first content week, we discussed early modern anatomy + botanical entanglements, from women's wombs to materia medica + herbals. We were lucky to work with original manuscripts, books + illustrations at the Medical Historical Library from the 15th-18thC. @mazarine.bsky.social guest visit!
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
🌿🌴🌿 We're wrapping up the semester!! That means it's time to recap my lecture class, Botanical Bodies: Plants, Medicine + Colonialism in the History of Science. Happy to share my syllabus, which I no longer make publicly available after some plagiarism issues. Get ready for a plant 🧵:
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
I wrote about Nepenthes, consumption + carnivory in this book - Natural Things in Early Modern Worlds - beautifully illustrated by a couple of collaborators. DM me if you want a PDF, and stay tuned for Nepenthes in my forthcoming writing. www.routledge.com/Natural-Thin...
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
Last week: a fun day at the Yale Center for British Art (one of my fav spots on campus) participating in a faculty workshop on the theme of ADDICTION, discussing work in the galleries + collections with interdisciplinary scholars. 🖤
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
Between our report on trust in higher ed, the number of faculty without jobs for next year, and this as Yale's current homepage, it's a weird time to be at Yale. One more week left of teaching. One more week left of teaching.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
Yesterday was my dog’s seven year gotcha day and we’re celebrating all weekend. Cheers to the sweetest, biggest, gentlest swimming dog in the world!
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
Anyway I got my DOODLE primarily because he was the biggest dog in the world, and he still is. His seven year adoption-versary is coming up, and it’s been seven years of being very big.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
Spring break is for catching up on old work, right? Fleshing out, finishing up, and sending out a million articles and projects this week. Right? Right…?
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
This Mon (3/2) join us at RISD for a session on Ecology as Relation: Tracing Curatorial Practices in Southeast Asia (5PM, RISD's CIT building). I'm speaking with Patrick Flores (National Gallery Singapore), Hannah Liongoren (RISD) + Anthony Medrano (Brown).
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 22/02/2026
Fun day back at Brown teaching for my friend Beatrice Steinert’s art / science class, with some necessary color during this depressing winter. Art supplies activated.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 15/02/2026
Amidst the chaos + the snow: lots of writing + lecturing with my MVP (most valuable pet).
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 14/12/2025
One nice thing during a horrible, heartbreaking weekend - New Haven’s first snow, and a very happy dog.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
Can’t believe it’s the last week of class before finals. This has been a particularly productive and exhausting semester, and I can’t wait to share new work soon. In the meantime, here’s my patient, helpful son.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
Franklin was extra good this week so on top of his morning hikes I made him a mini dog-safe chicken pot pie and now he has a new favorite food.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
Dream postdoc just dropped. One-year postdoc ($70K) at Yale's @yalewhc.bsky.social for the Franke Seminar in the Humanities on the incredible theme of ROT: Politics, Aesthetics, Regeneration. Taking folks from #histSTM, food studies, environmental humanities, etc. App due 12/8.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
Franklin loves fall - cooler temps, still warm enough for swimming, 🐿️ + 🍂 to chase, downed sticks from the nor’easter, a warm lap to dry off + snooze in.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
And a beautiful + productive October break trip to @nybg.bsky.social to do some work on bryophytic history with Laura Briscoe + Enrique Ramirez - me coming out on this very soon.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
Behind on posting about the weekly discussions + days in collections we’ve been having in my seminars, including another lovely visit to vertebrate paleontology to think through evolution + extinction.
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 29/09/2025
Thurs at 4PM, the inimitable @artcrimeprof.bsky.social is talking about "The Battle Over America's Monuments + Heroes" as part of the prestigious Poynter Fellowship in Journalism. I'm teaching during her talk, but my students are going + I'm so happy to see her on campus!
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