Publisher 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

Author Biography

Eben Kirksey is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oxford. He is the author of Freedom in Entangled Worlds: West Papua and the Global Architecture of Power, also published by Duke University Press.

Table of 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. Plumpiñon / 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

Review

"This timely anthology offers a substantial and engaging introduction to the field of multispecies studies, clearly presenting the core concepts of an important and influential area of scholarship, which will become increasingly central to anthropology, science studies, environmental studies, and social theory. At the same time, The Multispecies Salon is in many ways an art book. It features an extraordinary range of remarkable art projects, which are fascinating in their own right and beautifully written up." "The Multispecies Salon is an ambitious, important book, an excellent read, full of energy and imagination. I teach art and anthropology courses, and this volume will be a key pedagogical text for me. I am certain that The Multispecies Salon will also be an attractive text in science studies, environmental anthropology, and cultural studies courses. It's an enthralling collection."

Review Quote

"What's more revolutionary than contemplating the rights and interconnectedness of plants, animals, fungi, even microbes -- and then aspiring to a more expansive post-humanist society? This collection's contributors include such radical thinkers as Karen Barad and Donna Haraway. Reading it, my heart enlarges and my mind breaks free of its ruts."

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