Human Entanglements with More-Than-Human-Worlds

2024 Religion and Ecology Summit
Day 1 - April 8, 2024 - Morning Panel

Summit Opening and Welcome
Dr. Elizabeth Allison
Chair of the Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion Program

Message from the Provost
Dr. Kathy Littles

Land Acknowledgement
Dr. Preston Vargas
Director of the Center for Black and Indigenous Praxis
Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Dr. Patricia Kaishian: “Myceliating the Emotional Space”
Presenter bio: Dr. Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian is the Curator of Mycology at the New York State Museum, and a professor of biology with Bard Prison Initiative. She is a co-founder of the International Congress of Armenian Mycologists, which seeks to jointly protect Armenian sovereignty and biodiversity. Patricia also studies queer theory and philosophy of science, exploring how mycology and other scientific disciplines are situated in and informed by our sociopolitical landscape. Her work The science underground: mycology as a queer discipline appears in Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience. Her forthcoming book, Forest Euphoria, will be published by Spiegel & Grau.

Dr. Cate Sandilands: "Urticacious Intimacies and Queer Ecologies"
Presenter bio: Catriona (Cate) Sandilands is a Professor in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University, Toronto. Her research areas include queer and feminist ecologies, critical plant studies, ecocriticism, public environmental engagement through literature and storytelling, and creative writing practice and pedagogy. Her sole-authored and collaborative publications in these fields include the books The Good-Natured Feminist: Ecofeminism and the Quest for Democracy (1999); This Elusive Land: Women and the Canadian Environment (2004); Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire (2010); and Rising Tides: Reflections for Climate Changing Times (2019). Her recent writings on plants and queer ecologies include essays in Ecologies of Gender: Contemporary Nature Relations and the Nonhuman Turn (2022); Kin: Thinking with Deborah Bird Rose (2022); Sex Ecologies (2022); Environmental Humanities (2022); and The Cambridge Companion to Environmental Humanities (2021), all of which are part her project Plantasmagoria: Botanical Encounters in the (M)Anthropocene.

Dr. Michelle Marzullo: “Unforeseen Lines of Force: Queer Kinship, Climate Ethics”
Presenter bio: Michelle Marzullo, Ph.D. is a practicing anthropologist specializing in critical sexualities studies. Her latest works are Critical Sexuality Studies, Lavender Languages, and Everyday Life. Bloomsbury (Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2024) and Critical Sexual Literacy: Forecasting Trends in Sexual Politics, Diversity and Pedagogy (Anthem, 2021). She leverages her position to be a convener of academics and advocates who foster critical sexualities studies, which center issues of power related to sexualities, sex, and gender. Dr. Marzullo has worked on a wide range of research and consultancy engagements across topic such as LGBTQ access to higher education; artificial intelligence and reproductive health; workplace diversity and inclusion; sexuality, marriage, and economics in the U.S.; and LGBTQ youth issues.

Dr. Margaret Robinson: “Kinship with Other Animals in Mi’kmaw Spirituality”
Presenter bio: Dr. Margaret Robinson (she/her) is a two-spirit Mi’kmaw scholar and a citizen of Lennox Island First Nation. She holds Indian status under article 6.2 of the Canadian Indian Act. Margaret regularly publishes on sexual and gender identity, mental health, substance use, food sovereignty, and Indigenous cultural continuity. Her community-driven program of research examines benefits of cultural identity, language, and the arts to promote wellbeing for oppressed people. She works as an Associate Professor at Dalhousie University, where she holds the Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Reconciliation, Gender, and Identity.

Dr. Cleo Woelfle-Hazard: “Queer Fire and Flood: Collective ritual in more-than-human worlds”
Presenter bio: Cleo Woelfle-Hazard serves as a Fire Advisor for UC Cooperative Extension. As a scholar of institutions and political processes, he uses feminist and critical approaches to make environmental research and policy to be more responsive to the needs of place based communities. This work crucially involves valuing and centering Indigenous and local knowledge of fire, water, species, and social relations. His book Underflows: Queer Trans Ecologies and River Justice argues that rivers’ future vitality requires centering the values of justice, sovereignty, and dynamism. Incorporating work with salmon, beaver, and floodplain recovery projects, I weave narratives about innovative field research practices with an affectively oriented queer and trans focus on love and grief for rivers and fish.

Moderator: Andrew Scanlan, PhD Student in Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion at CIIS