Tori Bush

Environmental Humanities Scholar

I analyze how environmental changes reshape narrative possibility, and offer openings for collective imagination.

Tori Bush serves as an inaugural Postdoctoral Fellow at the Tulane Global Humanities Center, following positions at affiliated faculty at The New School and as a Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Climate Humanities and Social Justice at the Climate Museum. She received her PhD in 2023 from Louisiana State University.

She is the co‑editor of The Gulf South: An Anthology of Environmental Writing and is currently developing a monograph on settler colonial rhetorics in environmental literature. She has published in journals such as ISLE, Mississippi Quarterly, and others.

The Gulf South

An Anthology of Environmental Writing

Edited by Tori Bush and Richard Goodman

Published by: University Press of Florida

408 Pages, ISBN: 9780813066790, Published: March 2, 2021

The first collection of environmental writing about the Gulf South region, this volume features a diverse array of voices from the past 100 years. The work of these writers and artists enriches how we understand and represent the relationship between people and the rapidly changing ecology of the Gulf.

Reaching from Texas to Florida, this anthology presents pieces from a variety of genres, from journalism to poetry to memoir to a graphic nonfiction book. It comprises renowned authors such as Natasha Trethewey, Jesmyn Ward, and E. O. Wilson alongside lesser-known writers and emerging writers. The subjects include natural and human-made disasters, the impact of industry, influential historical events, personal encounters with the environment, and a deep love for the land and water by the people who live there.

Reflecting a range of different landscapes and their inhabitants, and emphasizing the human voice and condition throughout, The Gulf South brings to light a region whose influence on American commerce and culture reaches far beyond its geographical boundaries. This volume encourages readers to consider how we choose to characterize the environment and its degradation through language, and how these accounts affect our thinking and planning for the future.