The Future of the Insect Humanities

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Abstract

This roundtable will discuss the future of the insect humanities as a
field. Scholars interested in the insect humanities represent a small
but growing area within the larger field of non-human animal studies.
Insects have proved to be a helpful tool to examine a variety of
urgent issues in environmental history and the history of science in
particular. Recent scholarship from a number of different fields
includes Biotic Borders: Transpacific Plant and Insect Migration and
the Rise of Anti-Asian Racism in America, 1890–1950 (2022), Insect
Histories of East Asia (2023), and Lesser Living Creatures of the
Renaissance (2023). The ‘Insect Humanities’ first appeared in
publication in 2020, used by Daniel Burton-Rose to describe a “body of
scholarship … engaging to varying degrees with social sciences such as
anthropology and sociology as well as biology (particularly
entomology), the primary disciplines involved are the humanistic ones
of literary studies, history, philology, and religious studies.”

We are interested in opening a discussion about what methodologies
might prove helpful within insect studies. In addition, we hope to
reflect on the risk of anthropocentrism potentially implied by the
term 'insect humanities.' We would also welcome a discussion on how human interactions
with insects, conscious or otherwise, inform the historical process
(Bello). The future of insect studies involves interdisciplinary and
transdisciplinary engagement along with interaction with people whose
knowledge systems range outside traditional academic disciplines.

Sub Unit

• ASEH Annual Conference

Chair

• Harriet Ritvo, MIT

Moderator

• Deirdre Moore, EUI

Presenters

• Jeannie Shinozuka, Washington State University

• Angélica Marquez-Osuna, Harvard University

• David Bello, Washington and Lee University