Bodega Bay Map: 1930s survey map of Bodega Bay in which seagrass beds are illustrated along water/land boundaries as well as indications of noticeable “sand and mud” (tidal flats) in the middle of the harbor during low tides.

Margaret A. Miller

Margaret A. Miller

Life Forms at Boundaries: a trans*-ecology weaves together Trans Theory, an archive of wetland ecologies, and a personal history of transmasculinity to narrate a return to discourses of the natural as a means of defining the dynamic mutability of trans*-bodies in the face of pathologizing, essentialist gender critical discourses. This critical theory memoir revisits psychoanalytic concepts by Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan for their ecological inflections while building off of contemporary Trans Theory works by Claire Colebrook and Eva Hayward, including considerations of trans*- as a vitality that precedes and exceeds categorical and ontological distinction and considerations of metaphors and metonymies of and with the (human) body as always inextricably tied to their nonhuman carnal substrates. Wetland habitats and ecosystems foster an opportunity to narrate trans*-ness and gender transition through a porous and dynamic ecological form that reveals the possibilities of a transmasculine storytelling based in lateral movements and non-development.

Excerpts from Life Forms at Boundaries: a trans*-ecology

The Woolly Bear (PDF)
Transgenerational Plasticity (PDF)

Bodega Bay Map: 1930s survey map of Bodega Bay in which seagrass beds are illustrated along water/land boundaries as well as indications of noticeable “sand and mud” (tidal flats) in the middle of the harbor during low tides.
Whale Fall I: a whale spinal column found February 12, 2021 in a freshwater estuary near Salmon Creek Beach, Bodega Bay. Only several days earlier, Bodega Bay had a completely normal winter rainstorm. It was wind-full and boisterous, the rain pummeling the sand faster than it could absorb the moisture, creating an overflow of the estuary, a temporary floodplain where, for a brief moment, these two bodies of water touched, and their traces traveled betwixt them.
Next to the massive spinal column are thick rolls of whale fat and blubber. The whale’s ghostly presence animates a new concept for Karolina to mention. She calls it a “whale fall.”
A whale fall is a gorgeous and revelatory misnomer. It names the process of a whale’s death, but decenters the individual’s demise and instead centers a story of animacy, of liveliness, of cooperation: of decay as a queer form of repurposing and reproducing.
A Woolly Bear caterpillar found around the Bodega Marine Lab’s housing units on February 17, 2021 near the freshwater wetland.
Photo of Aurora M. Ricart et. al’s kelp restoration project at the Bodega Marine Lab’s wet lab. The experiment asks about the effect of temperature on the development of bull kelp, a marine forest species.
Photo taken by Sonoma State University graduate students: Rachel Karm and Julieta Gomez, and CO-PI Brent Hughes and Aurora M. Ricart. A multi-pronged approach to kelp recovery along California’s north coast (Funded by California Seagrant, reference number R/HCE-15).
photo taken April 2021 for Isabelle Neylan’s transgenerational plasticity project with red abalone. Photo is of abalone spawns ten days post-fertilization and post-settlement.
A winter low tide in Bodega Harbor with seagrass and sea lettuce unveiled.
A sand dollar found during a winter low tide on the Bodega Harbor tidal flats. The light pink hue is due to exposure to the sun while being unsubmerged during Bodega’s daily low tides.