Jemma Deer joins the RCC from the Harvard University Center for the Environment, where she was a 2018–20 postdoctoral research fellow. Through readings of literature and philosophy, her work explores the ways in which the ecological and social crises of the Anthropocene—global warming, mass extinction, food and resource insecurity—are not only transforming the planet, but also transforming what it means to be human.

Her first book, Radical Animism: Reading for the End of the World (London: Bloomsbury, 2020), weaves together ideas from anthropology, astronomy, deconstruction, evolutionary biology, literary studies, psychoanalysis, quantum physics and veganism in order to develop a new theory of animism for a planet in crisis. She is currently working on a project on fungi in literature. She also hosts EcoCast, the official podcast of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE).