The Multispecies Salon

by Eben Kirksey (Editor)

A new approach to writing culture has 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

Genres: Anthropology, Nonfiction, Ecology, Science

328 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

EBEN KIRKSEY is an American anthropologist and Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He has been published in Wired, The Atlantic, The Guardian and The Sunday Times. He is sought out as an expert on science in society by the Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Democracy Now, Time and the BBC, among other media outlets. He speaks widely at the world’s leading academic institutions including Oxford, Yale, Columbia, UCLA, and the International Summit of Human Genome Editing, plus music festivals, art exhibits, and community events. Professor Kirksey holds a long-term position at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia.

Reviews

[Molsa Roja(s)]

Quite a dull account of an art show -or perhaps I'm just moody. If you have already read Kirksey, Tsing, Barad or Haraway, there's really nothing new for you here -nothing. Given that this is precisely the reason why I bought the book in the first place -to hear some of her thoughts-, it's only understandable that I'm worn off. The book explains some of the pieces shown in the exhibition, which may or may not be interesting but is indeed insufficient, as one cannot participate in it through the reading only; and the book has some writings of different para-ethnographers on multispecies studios, yet I haven't been able to get any emotion or any breaking thought in them. Sometimes I have this deeply dark, disturbing feeling that some philosophy is nothing but an exercise on writing certain words in a changing order so as to convey the feeling that one has something to say, when in fact has not. That is, an empty speech, dispossessed of meaning, dead. I probably wouldn't stop you from reading it, but wouldn't recommend it either. Stick to Haraway, van Dooren and Bird-Rose -can't stand Tsing.

[Javier Avilés]

Una perspectiva etnográfica única. Una caja de herramienta que te invita a construir tus propias casas de lenguaje.

[Justin Abraham]

This book is full of weirdness and wonder.

the "zoe" or "bare life" - a realm of creatures deemed killable.
The prison contracts taken on to have American prisoners clean up toxic oil spills.

Messianic hope which contains "the attraction, invincible élan or affirmation of an unpredictable future-to-come (or even past-to-come again)" (31).

A New Orleans style of mourning (41).

Companion is cum panis!

microbiopolitics - dissent over how to live with microorganisms reflects disagreement about how humans out to live with one another.

"Cheese is the odor of decay... once acquired, however, the tate of partial spoilage can become a passion..."

Political potential of Indigestion!! "Trying to make a living, critters eat critters but can only partly digest one another.... Quite a lot of indigestion, not to mention excretion, is the vehicle for new sorts of complex patternings of ones and manys in entangled association." (135).

Thneeds!

Caitlin Berrigan's whole piece!! "biosociality", the "pathetic political gesture... somewhere between useful and metaphor" !!! (169) Matter out of place! (171) "a becoming with" (176)

The queer bacteria "wolbachia"

Care, kinship, becomings (206-208)

Body as performance, not thing (228)

The "wild" and the "quiet" country (243)

[madeline]

although i've only read parts of this book, the chapter by Haraway was transformational in my spiritual journey and personal journey. i plan on re-reading these words over and over and over again.

[John]

This book is a trip, and a beautiful one. For those (like me) not familiar with bio-art, eco-art, and what have you, you'll be stimulated by having to consider human cheese, or goat-milk soap containing traces of a goat's thousand-mile journey. Also a strong implicit argument for anthropologists for "making culture" to come after "writing culture." This would interest anyone who likes the environmental humanities.