“Entangled Lives: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures” with Merlin Sheldrake
Thursday February 12th, 2026 | 6:00PM MST
The Idea of Nature public lecture series presents: ”Entangled Lives: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures” with Merlin Sheldrake, Biologist, Speaker, and New York Times best-selling author. Free and open to the public. There is a free reception and brief Q and A session afterwards, and free parking is available. Attending students may be able to receive extra credit.
“Thinking about fungi makes the world look different. Most fungi live out of sight, yet make up a massively diverse kingdom of organisms that support and sustain nearly all living systems. Fungi throw our concepts of individuality and even intelligence into question. They can change our minds, heal our bodies, and help remediate environmental disaster. In this talk, Merlin will discuss the ways these extraordinary organisms – and our relationships with them – change our understanding of the planet on which we live, and the ways that we think, feel, and behave”.
Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist, speaker and author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures. Entangled Life, a New York Times and Sunday Times best-seller, has been translated into thirty languages and was named a TIME Must-Read Book. He is the presenter of the documentary Fungi: Web of Life, narrated by Björk. Merlin’s research ranges from fungal biology to the history of Amazonian ethnobotany, to the relationship between sound and form in resonant systems. By examining fungi on their own terms, he reveals how these extraordinary organisms – and our relationships with them – are changing our understanding of how life works. Entangled Life won the Wainwright Prize and the Royal Society Science Book Prize.
The goal of the The Idea of Nature lecture series is to promote interdisciplinary inquiry about the environment and to foster dialogue across the campus and community. Dr. Samantha Harvey founded The Idea of Nature in 2012. She joined the faculty of the Department of English Literature at Boise State University in 2010. She received her Ph.D. from Cambridge University in English Literature and her B.A. in English and the Study of Religion from Harvard University. Dr. Harvey’s teaching and research interests include nineteenth-century British poetry and prose, transatlantic Romanticism, and literature and the environment.
This lecture is sponsored in part by: The Nature Conservancy, Southern Idaho Mushroom Club, Ada County Soil and Water Conservation District, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, Idaho Humanities Council, Boise State University’s College of Business, College of Education, College of Health Sciences, School of the Environment, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English Literature and The Humanities and Social Sciences Initiative.