In this episode, Dr. Andrew McCumber joins us to discuss Raymond Williams’s ‘Ideas of Nature’ from Problems in Materialism and Culture (1980). Andy introduces us to Willams’s overview of our changing understanding of nature and the natural and why it matters. Andy also discusses the influence of the essay on his dissertation research and current book project titled “The Pest We All Live With: The Cultural Meanings of the Life and Death of Rats.”

A pdf of this essay is available here.