DC Club: “Cross Pollinations: Science, Politics and Humanity’s Place in the World”

“Cross Pollinations: Science, Politics and Humanity’s Place in the World”

A Zoom Conversation with Award-winning Journalist and Author Sonia Shah ’90

As the fundamental divide between Homo sapiens and the rest of the animal world erodes, imaginary walls that once separated science from politics, culture from nature and humans from animals have started to break down. Scientists discover each of the qualities purported to prove our distinctiveness in nature in other non-human species. A “polycrisis” of biodiversity loss, climate change, and creeping authoritarianism challenges the idea of humans as the sole thinking intelligence on earth. In this talk, Sonia Shah ’90 explores how these changes are making cross-pollinations possible--and whether they might augur a new sense of humanity’s place in the world.

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Sonia Shah ’90 is a journalist, Guggenheim fellow, and author of critically acclaimed and prize-winning books on science, health, and humanity’s place in the world. Her sixth book, The Imaginary Wall: How We Lost Our Kinship with Animals, winner of a 2023 Whiting Grant for Creative Nonfiction, is forthcoming from Bloomsbury in February 2027. Sonia majored in Philosophy and Neuroscience at Oberlin and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humanities in 2025. You can follow her through the newsletter Cross Pollinations.