The Edible, the Moldy, and the Weedy: Speculative and Materialist Interventions into (Evading) Capitalist Capture

Session Submission Type: Traditional (Closed) Panel

Abstract

This panel calls attention to the transnational discards of globalization’s promises. Though often overlooked as “ugly” and “disgusting” things, mold, fungi, slime, and mucous can constitute wondrous and elusive forms of life, as well as complex materials with which to think about legacies of empire and the asymmetrical distribution of life chances around the world. At times, they can model collective organizing, collaboration, and cooperation in the face of ever more aggressive human moves to privatization. In other instances, their entanglements with other species contradict androcentric narratives about securitization and health. Taking up humanistic and historical perspectives to study a range of investments and revaluings of molds, fungi, and industrial dairy waste, this panel contributes to the social study of science by emphasizing how transnational contexts prove key to understanding trans-species intra-action (e.g., the militarized histories of cellulolytic molds, linked in mass media to “toxic black mold,” the postwar spread of fungal blast that is destroying rice harvests, as well as the uneven terrain across which powdered milk gets distributed in the Global South and why). Sharing a commitment to feminist, decolonial approaches to science and technology studies, these panelists pull old and new materialisms into conversation to intervene in capitalism’s production of fungible and disposable, non/human life.

Sub Unit

• Closed Panels

Chair

• Melinda Cooper, The University of Sydney

Individual Presentations

• Stachybotrys chartarum’s Transpacific Migrations - Rachel C Lee, UCLA Center for the Study of Women

• Healthy Harms and Fat-Free Futures - Athia Choudhury, University of Southern California

• Queering Physarum polycephalum - Aimee Bahng, Pomona College

• Estrogen and Melanin in the Art of Jes Fan - Ari Heinrich, UCSD

Session Organizer

• Aimee Bahng, Pomona College