Hello and welcome to the May newsletter of morethanhumanworlds! This month, I'm sharing an essay on storying extinction through rhythm and refrain, published by the Sydney Environment Institute, a book chapter on multispecies studies and the climate, published in Earth Cries: A Climate Anthology (University of Sydney Press 2021), and a recording of a workshop on academic publishing, hosted by the Asian Studies Association of Australia. Some exciting conferences and online talks are coming up this month. Featured here are an online presentation at the Food Matters and Materialities Conference and two talks by Radhika Govindrajan and Zsuzsanna Ihar as part of The Promise of Multispecies Justice project. In this month's Morethanhuman Matters interview, I speak with Holly High, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Sydney. Holly uses ethnographic methods and anthropological analysis to understand human experience. She has written about anthropological approaches to debt, power and desire; psychoanalytic theory and anthropology; Lao policy (including cultural, poverty, health and agricultural policies) in relation to lived experience in that country; everyday politics in Laos; emerging infectious disease as an intercultural zone; and religion in Laos. If you'd like to share resources, news, or anything else related to morethanhumanworlds, please send them to me for inclusion in the June newsletter. Enjoy and thank you for subscribing to morethanhumanworlds! |
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NEW OUTPUTS Read an essay on storying loss and extinction, published by the Sydney Environment Institute. In this essay, I reflect on a series of panels on extinction held at the Sydney Festival Requiem and organized by the Sydney Environment Institute. Read a book chapter on multispecies studies, published in Earth Cries: A Climate Change Anthology (University of Sydney Press 2021). In this chapter, I reflect on the importance of multispecies stories in an age of climate change and environmental crisis. |
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Listen to an online seminar on academic publishing, hosted by the Asian Studies Association of Australia (password: zfG7FHRY!=3y). In this seminar, I speak alongside Nathan Hollier (CEO, Melbourne University Publishing), Kevin Carrico (Monash University), and Benjamin Hegarty (Australian National University) on the process of adapting a PhD thesis into a book and engaging with academic publishing houses. |
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UPCOMING EVENTS Join us at the conference Food Matters and Materialities, hosted by Carleton University, Canada. As part of this conference, I'll be giving a paper on the ontology of sago palms as food, matter, and kin among Indigenous Marind in West Papua. Join us for a talk by anthropologist Radhika Govindrajan who will reckon with slippery questions of justice grounded in complex cares and responsibilities across human and bovine lives (and afterlives) in the Central Himalayan state of Uttarakhand in India. The talk will be followed by discussion with Alex Blanchette, the MSJ editors, and audience Q&A. Join us for a talk by Zsuzsanna Ihar who will traces the subtle ways in which extractive capitalism reconfigures relations between the human and the nonhuman in Azerbaijan's post-industrial Black City. The talk will be followed by discussion with Carla Freccero, the MSJ editors, and audience Q&A. To register for upcoming Promise of Multispecies Justice talks, visit www.multispeciesjustice.space. To listen to past Promise of Multispecies Justice talks, click here. |
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"Different disciplines bring different lenses to the same events and circumstances. Different disciplines bring different concerns and even different emotional responses." Holly High |
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MORETHANHUMAN MATTERS This week, morethanhuman matters interviews Holly High, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Sydney. Holly uses ethnographic methods and anthropological analysis to understand human experience. Her research explores debt, power and desire; psychoanalytic theory and anthropology; Lao policy; everyday politics in Laos; emerging infectious disease as an intercultural zone; and religion in Laos. Holly is the author of Fields of Desire: Poverty and Policy in Laos (National University of Singapore Press, 2014). | | |
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FOR THE READING LIST Ginn, F. (2014). Sticky Lives: Slugs, Detachment and More-than- Human Ethics in the Garden. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 39(4), 532 – 544. On the sticky relationship between slugs and gardeners, as these are shaped by shared histories, curiosity, and disgust. Jablonski, N. G. (2006). Skin: A Natural History. University of California Press. On the significance of the skin as a mediator for intimate connections with the world, health, identity, and individuality. |
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Morell-Hart, S. (2012). Foodways and Resilience under Apocalyptic Conditions. Culture, Agriculture, Food, and Environment, 34(2), 161–171. On how cultural redefinitions of food and foodways can help understand and negotiate extreme circumstances of precarity and crisis. Mbembe, A. (2003). Necropolitics. Public Culture, 15(1), 11 – 40. On necropolitics, or the power and the capacity to dictate who may live and who must die, as the ultimate expression of sovereignty. |
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