Aubrey Streit Krug
Director of Perennial Cultures Lab
Aubrey grew up in the small town of Tipton in north-central Kansas, where her parents farm wheat and raise cattle, and considers limestone soils with rocky prairie hillsides her home ground. She lives in Lindsborg now with her husband and their son. Aubrey holds a BA in English and communications from Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas, and MA and PhD in English and Great Plains Studies from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. As an undergraduate she served as a communications intern at The Land Institute.
Aubrey is drawn to “how The Land Institute is based on an educational premise: people can, and do, learn from wild plants and ecosystems. That, and how unabashedly this organization plays the long game.” Read Aubrey’s “Interview with an Ethnobotanist”.
Q&A
What’s most inspiring about your specific position at TLI?
Being challenged to imagine what human cultures nourished by perennial grains grown in polycultures will be like.
What’s one aspect of your life history that most people don’t know or wouldn’t expect?
After college I taught English and African literature for a year in Bratislava, Slovakia.
If you were to write a book, what would it be about?
In addition to the Omaha language and culture textbook I collaborated on, I’m actually in the process of writing a book—it’s about ethnobotany and American literature. I’m interested in the metaphors through which Euro-American and Indigenous cultures know and relate to plants.
What’s your motto / favorite quote?
The lines “Be joyful / though you have considered all the facts” from Wendell Berry’s “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” come to mind. At least that’s what I try for and want to teach my child.
Support the work of Aubrey and others at The Land Institute with a donation.