Taylor Genovese
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Mail code: 5603Campus: Tempe
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Student Information
Graduate StudentHuman and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology
College of Global Futures
Taylor R. Genovese is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology program. His Ph.D. is supervised by Gaymon Bennett (Chair), Alexander Aviña, Lisa Messeri, and Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm. He had the great honor of being one of David Graeber's students and advisees until his unexpected passing in 2020. His work mainly focuses on nostalgia, capitalism, the Anthropocene, and the overlaps between occult practices and materialism(s). His dissertation research takes a specific look at the legacy of Russian Cosmism, a nineteenth century political theology promoting a universal human program for overcoming death, resurrecting ancestors, and traveling through the cosmos.
At ASU, he currently holds the positions of:
- Research Associate in the Collaboratory on Religion, Science, and Technology.
- Graduate Student Affiliate with The Melikian Center for Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies.
As an eclectic multimodal anthropologist, he tends to work simultaneously on a variety of different projects in a diversity of artistic and academic modes, using digital video, film, photography, and sound as methods and sites of inquiry for anthropological research. He produces most of his multimodal work through Kuznitsa.
In his spare time, he is passionate about collecting vinyl records and is an avid (if sometimes inconsistent) cinephile.
Ph.D. (ABD) Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology, Arizona State University
M.A. Sociocultural Anthropology, Northern Arizona University
B.A. Anthropology, University of Arizona
anthropology of outer space • multimodal ethnography • religious studies • political theory • social movements • utopia(s) and communism(s) • borderlands • decolonization • Russian Cosmism • critical secular studies • the supernatural and the uncanny • death and dying • performance • historical memory • U.S. • Russia • Space
Collaboratory on Religion, Science and Technology at the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict
The Melikian Center for Russian, Eurasian and East European Studies
Peer-Reviewed Articles
2022. Under the Shadow of the Wall. Visual Anthropology Review 38 (2): 280–297. doi: 10.1111/var.12280.
2022. Мультимодальные подходы к изучению космических музеев. Этнографическое обозрение № 5. [“Multimodal Approaches to the Study of Space Museums.” Ethnographic Review (Etnograficheskoe obozrenie) № 5-2022.]
2020. The Necessity of Communist Morality. Peace, Land, and Bread 3: 19–36.
2019. Going Gonzo: Toward a Performative Practice in Multimodal Ethnography. entanglements 2 (1): 97–110.
2018. "Death is a Disease": Cryopreservation, Neoliberalism, and Temporal Commodification in the U.S. Technology in Society 54: 52–56. doi: 10.1016/j.techsoc.2018.03.002.
2016. Decolonizing archival methodology: Combating hegemony and moving towards a collaborative archival environment. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples 12 (1): 32–42. doi: 10.20507/AlterNative.2016.12.1.3
Translations
2022. Art and the Working Class by Alexander Bogdanov. Iskra Books.
Editor-Reviewed Articles & Book Reviews
2019. How the egalitarian dreams that fueled the quest for ’young blood’ treatments got perverted. The Washington Post. 27 March.
2018. Picturing the Cosmos: A Visual History of Early Soviet Space Endeavor by Iina Kohonen. LSE Review of Books. 9 February.
2017. On Scarves, Serpents, and Solidarity. (in Anthropology Matters! in Brief) Anthropology News. 15 December. doi: 10.1111/AN.724
2017. Review of “Placing Outer Space: An Earthly Ethnography of Other Worlds” by Lisa Messeri. LSE Review of Books. 10 March.
2016. Review of “Kropotkin and the Anarchist Intellectual Tradition” by Jim MacLaughlin. LSE Review of Books. 28 September.
2016. Orbiting the Imaginary. Peeps Magazine 1 (2): 134–139.
2016. Honey I Shrunk The Space Settlement! Dunbar’s Number & Radical Politics in Space. Astrosociological Insights 5 (1): 19–22.
2016. Review of “The Left Side of History: World War II and the Unfulfilled Promise of Communism in Eastern Europe” by Kristen Ghodsee. Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale 24 (2): 257–258. doi: 10.1111/1469-8676.12244
2015. Marking territory in the infinite: Speculating on the implications of flags in space. Peeps Forum. 1 June.
Non-Refereed Articles
(co-authored with Martin Pfeiffer) 2017. "To Peace, Because the Awful Alternative is the End of All Life": Build Bomb—Explore Space(s)—Save World! anthro{dendum} (formally Savage Minds). 16 & 20 July.
2017. Shitting in Space: Engagements with Cosmic Taboo. anthro{dendum} (formally Savage Minds). 13 July.
2017. Casting into the Cosmos: Magic and Ritual in Human Spaceflight. anthro{dendum} (formally Savage Minds). 2 & 6 July.
2016. Fear and Loathing in Truth or Consequences: Neoliberalism, Colonialism and the Lineage of the Frontier at Spaceport America. Space + Anthropology. 2 September.
2015. Aliens on the Internet: Anthropology of the imagination in online speculative fiction. Space + Anthropology. 13 April.
2015. Room To Dream: Space & the American Southwest. Space + Anthropology. 24 March.
Media & Films
(Director/Cinematographer/Editor/Writer). 2022. Under the Shadow of the Wall.
(Photography) 2021. Gaymon Bennett. Anima, Animism, Animate: Ethnography after Authenticity. Techniques Journal 1: 1–17.
2018. The decadence and depravity of Biosphere 2. Footnotes. 30 May.
2017. The New Right Stuff Photo essay complimenting MA thesis.
(Director) 2015. Accelerator Mass Spectrometry: A Tour of the Carbon-14 Dating Process. In Art and Archaeology of Ancient Rome: An Introduction, by David Soren and Archer Martin. Baltimore, MD: Midnight Marquee Press.
(Director of Photography) 2014. Growing Together: Las Milpitas de Cottonwood Community Farm. Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology.
(Director of Photography/Editor) 2013. Pima County Public Library: Welcome to the Library. Available in six languages: Arabic, Maay-Maay, Nepalese, Somali-Bantu, Spanish & English. Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology.
2022. “Wandering Through the Land of Sunflowers and Steel: A Visual and Sonic Exploration of Ukraine on the Eve of War.” Society for Visual Anthropology Visual Research Conference. 9 November. Seattle, WA.
2022. “Dark Cosmism: Contested Territories of the Counter-Human in (Extra)Planetary Philosophy.” Annual Conference of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages. 19 February. Philadelphia, PA.
2021. “Russian Cosmists and Border Ghosts: Eclectic Anthropologies of Death and Memory.” 120th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. 17 November. Baltimore, MD.
2021. “No-Places and Secular Modernity.” Society for the Anthropology of Religion Biennial Meeting roundtable. 14 May.
2021. “Malevolent Normalcy: The Arizona Border Wall and the Creation of Violent Homogeneity.” Southwest Humanities Symposium, Arizona State University. 27 February. Tempe, AZ.
2020. "’You’re breaking my immersion!’ Dispatches from a simulated warzone." Distribute 2020. Biennial Conference of the Society for Cultural Anthropology and the Society for Visual Anthropology. 8 May.
2019. "Disrupting Power: Between and Beyond Hierarchy and Egalitarianism in the Community." 118th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting roundtable. 22 November. Vancouver, B.C.
2019. "No ’Planet B’: Multiplanetary Ethics In The Anthropocene." 118th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting roundtable. 20 November. Vancouver, B.C.
2018. ”Destabilizing Power and Asserting Praxis in Post-HAU Anthropology.” 117th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting late-breaking roundtable. November. San Jose, CA.
2018. ”In the Shadow of Despots: Extremism, Zealotry, and Abolitionist Anthropology.” 117th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. 15 November. San Jose, CA.
2017. (Chair). “‘Realists’ of a Larger Reality: Anthropological Intersections with Science Fiction.” 116th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. 2 December. Washington, D.C.
2017. “Fear and Loathing in Truth or Consequences: Neoliberalism, Colonialism and the Lineage of the Frontier at Spaceport America.” 116th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. 30 November. Washington, D.C.
2017. “Cosmic Colonialism: Imperial Imaginaries at Spaceport America.” Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Conference. 28 March. Santa Fe, NM.
2016.“Radical Imaginaries of Outer Space: Resisting Extra-Planetary Neoliberalism and Cosmic Primitive Accumulation.” 115th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. 20 November. Minneapolis, MN.
2015. “Decolonizing Archival Methodology: Combating Hegemony & Moving Towards A Collaborative Archival Environment” 114th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. 19 November. Denver, CO.
2014. “Comparisons in Film Production between Commercial Endeavors and Applied Visual Ethnography” Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Conference. 18 March. Albuquerque, NM.
2013. “Reaching into the Community: Using Multimedia to Break Down Barriers.” Arizona Library Association Annual Conference. 22 November. Phoenix, AZ.