Multispecies South Asia

A wide range of other-than-human subjects—animals, plants, microbes, among others—animate contemporary South Asian lived experiences. Relationships formed across species boundaries— whether brief or long-lasting, utilitarian or altruistic— are imbricated in  the intersectional operations of race, caste, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and indigeneity. From quotidian instances of touching, witnessing, and other forms of interacting with other-than-human subjects to exceptional, contextually specific use of them to bolster anthropocentric concerns, the ubiquity of multispecies coexistence is uncontested. 

Indigenous scholar and game developer Jason Edward Lewis has argued that the involvement and agency of Indigenous communities in the video game industry allow Indigenous artists and creatives to “stake out our own territory in a common future” (Lewis, 2014). After Lewis, and in light of the meteoric increase in video games titles and other works of digital media by, about, and for Indigenous communities, this session will explore the intersection of Indigenous cultures and cosmologies, storytelling, and video games.

This area of the Northeast Popular Culture Association encourages paper submissions that explore the relation of science and technology to popular culture and American culture, with science and technology broadly defined. We are particularly interested in putting science, technology, culture, and the humanities in conversation with one another. How are science and technology represented in popular culture? How do we use popular culture to understand science and technology? And how do we use science and technology to understand narratives, art, and culture?