Full Description
A new approach to writing culture has arrived: multispecies ethnography. Plants, animals, fungi, and microbes appear alongside humans in this singular book about natural and cultural history. Anthropologists have collaborated with artists and biological scientists to illuminate how diverse organisms are entangled in political, economic, and cultural systems. Contributions from influential writers and scholars, such as Dorion Sagan, Karen Barad, Donna Haraway, and Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, are featured along with essays by emergent artists and cultural anthropologists.
Delectable mushrooms flourishing in the aftermath of ecological disaster, microbial cultures enlivening the politics and value of food, and nascent life forms running wild in the age of biotechnology all figure in this curated collection of essays and artifacts. Recipes provide instructions on how to cook acorn mush, make cheese out of human milk, and enliven forests after they have been clear-cut. The Multispecies Salon investigates messianic dreams, environmental nightmares, and modest sites of biocultural hope.
For additional materials see the companion website: www.multispecies-salon.org/
Contributors. Karen Barad, Caitlin Berrigan, Karin Bolender, Maria Brodine, Brandon Costelloe-Kuehn, David S. Edmunds, Christine Hamilton, Donna J. Haraway, Stefan Helmreich, Angela James, Lindsay Kelley, Eben Kirksey, Linda Noel, Heather Paxson, Nathan Rich, Anna Rodriguez, Dorion Sagan, Craig Schuetze, Nicholas Shapiro, Miriam Simun, Kim TallBear, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing
Contents
Introduction / Eben Kirksey, Craig Schuetze, and Stefan Helmreich 1 Part I. Blasted Landscapes 1. Hope in Blasted Landscapes / Eben Kirksey, Nicholas Shapiro, and Maria Brodine 29 R. A. W. Assmilk Soap / Karin Bolender 64 3. Blasted Landscapes (And the Gentle Arts of Mushroom Picking) / Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, for the Matsutake Worlds Research Group 87 Part II. Edible Companions Interlude. Microbiopolitics / Heather Paxson 115 Recipe 1. Plumpinon / Lindsay Kelley 122 Recipe 2. Human Cheese / Miriam Sumin 135 Recipe 3. Multispecies Communities / Eben Kirksey 145 Recipe 4. Bitter Medicine is Stronger / Linda Noel, Christine Hamilton, Anna Rodriguez, Angela James, Nathan Rich, David S. Edmunds, and Kim TallBear 154 4. Life Cycle of a Common Weed / Caitlin Berrigan 164 Part III. Life and Biotechnology 5. Life in the Age of Biotechnology / Eben Kirksey, Brandon Costelleo-Kuehn, and Dorion Sagan 185 6. Invertebrate Visions: Diffractions of the Brittlestar / Karen Barad 221 7. Speculative Fabulations for Technoculture's Generations: Taking Care of Unexpected Country / Donna J. Haraway 242 Acknowledgments 263 Bibliography 271 Contributors 289 Index 295
