My guest is Chris Coggins. Chris has been professor of Geography and Asian Studies at Bard College at Simon’s Rock for 27 years, and now teaches at the new Simon’s Rock at Bard College. He is the author of The Tiger and the Pangolin: Nature, Culture, and Conservation in China (2003) and many articles and chapters on geography, environment, and China. He is the editor of, most recently, Sacred Forests of Asia: Spiritual Ecology and the Politics of Nature Conservation (2022) with Bixia Chen. He has a new article in American Historical Review, coauthored with Ian Miller, on Fengshui forests in China, and he has an essay on Betty’s Oak and the forests around Simon’s Rock in a forthcoming collection edited by Jennifer Browdy. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Recorded at the University of Southern California Digital Creative Lab in September 2025.