This is a workshop associated with a talk that takes place later the same day, from 4:00pm - 5:30pm. This talk traces how rubber-producing plants became a global commodity, and it emphasizes the disastrous environmental impact and brutal labor exploitation that ensued as a result. I analyze visual and textual narratives of the rubber-producing tree hevea brasiliensis, and I propose a speculative mode of analysis based on shifting scientific paradigms on plant intelligence and plant behavior. I also discuss the role of key figures like William Jackson Hooker—the English botanist and director of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew who successfully domesticated hevea seedlings, paving the way for the development of rubber plantations in British colonies in Southeast Asia and, in the process, contributing to the collapse of the Amazonian rubber boom—and Roger Casement—the Irish diplomat known for his harrowing accounts of the violent labor regimes in the Congo Free State and the Peruvian Amazon propelled by the rubber economy. The talk further shows the links between botany, plant commodification, and imperialism. Register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeVbDT0gD-NegZwq_84V33CpGTX3ENdfvdXDcXdFWWkcCz30w/viewform Send me a picture/summary of what you did and learned at 732-673-8513 for credit!