"You'd think that biologists, of all people, would have words for life," writes Robin Wall Kimmerer. Forms of life writing have evolved, as environmental crisis prompts new ways of thinking about both writing and life. This course focuses on works that push the envelope of self-expression, nature writing, and literary form, blending biology and autobiography — with an emphasis on bio — including Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass, Thoreau's Walden, Diana Beresford Kroeger's To Speak for the Trees, and Sumana Roy's How I Became a Tree. Boundary-pushing poets, naturalists, and foresters (e.g., Walt Whitman, Wangari Maathai, Aldo Leopold, Suzanne Simard) situate themselves and their work in a more-than-human world, which they imagine as interconnected, porous, or "transcorporeal." This seminar introduces students to ecocriticism, autobiographical theory, and new perspectives in botany and forestry, which show that plants have languages of their own. Like legal scholar Christopher Stone and historian Roderick Nash, we consider whether "Nature" has rights and what constitutes personhood. Most of the class will take place outdoors. Assignments will include creative projects that encourage students to rethink the boundaries of literary criticism and self-expression. Following Howard Nemerov's "Learning the Trees," we consider how books cooperate and/or compete with experience.