BROADCASTS.com

\u201cI like thinking with viruses because they\u2019re constantly infecting us, changing our nature. Some of them are even changing our genome. We\u2019re constantly in relation with the world around us even though we can barely perceive and understand all of this complexity.\u201d

In this episode, we are joined by anthropologist Eben Kirksey, who invites us to think and feel through a new wave of viral theory through a lens of multi-species entanglement. Through his insatiable curiosity about nature-culture, Eben humbly approaches the viral world as one that reflects the limitations of fixed or reductive categorization. Ultimately, he leaves us with an invitation to explore how radically re-thinking viral systems can offer alternative ways of approaching contemporary socio-political predicaments. He asks: how can we sit with the complexities of symbiotic assemblages amongst species, and what novel relationships are imperative to uplift in an age of extinction?

Eben Kirksey is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oxford where he teaches Medical Anthropology and Human Ecology. He earned his PhD at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and helped found one of the world's first Environmental Humanities programs at UNSW Sydney in Australia. Investigating some of the most important stories of our time\u2014related to biotechnology, the environment, and social justice\u2014led him to Asia, the Pacific, and the Americas. His books include Freedom in Entangled Worlds (2012) and Emergent Ecologies (2015)\u2013plus The Multispecies Salon (2014), and The Mutant Project (2020), a book that follows some of the world\u2019s first genetically modified people.

(The musical offering featured in this episode Lose My Mind by RVBY MY DEAR. The episode-inspired artwork is by Luci Pina.)

Green Dreamer is a community-supported podcast. Join our Patreon and contribute a gift of any amount today to help keep our platform alive: greendreamer.com/support