About
Writer, Speaker, Teacher.
Eben Kirksey is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oxford where he teaches Medical Anthropology and Human Ecology. He earned his PhD at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and helped found one of the world's first Environmental Humanities programs at UNSW Sydney in Australia.
Download Academic CVSpeaking
Bringing lively stories to the stage.
Eben has an insatiable curiosity about nature and culture. Investigating some of the most important stories of our time—related to biotechnology, the environment, and social justice—led him to Asia, the Pacific, and the Americas.
Learn MoreBooks
Duke University Press published his first two books–Freedom in Entangled Worlds (2012) and Emergent Ecologies (2015)–plus The Multispecies Salon (2014), a curated collection of artwork and essays. The Mutant Project (2020), a book that follows some of the world’s first genetically modified people, was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Publications
Speaking
He "will inspire, entertain, and challenge.” - Prof. Sarah Franklin, University of Cambridge.
Learn MoreArt
An exhibit on The Promise of Multispecies Justice showcases art and artefacts from around the world.
The Emergent Ecologies exhibit featured bioart installations, living sculptures, paintings, photographs, and digital media.
Eben has helped curate a number of exhibits, including The Multispecies Salon which traveled from San Francisco (2008) to New Orleans (2010), before settling in New York City. Princeton University supported his pop-up show called “Chemical Species” and an off-campus exhibit in Brooklyn, New York, exploring “Emergent Ecologies” with over 90 artists. The current Open Call associated with his most recent co-edited collection The Promise of Multispecies Justice is seeking art centered on distributive justice and the equitable sharing of resources.
EXPLORE ART EXHIBITS
Broadcast Media and Print Journalism
Eben Kirksey is an expert on science and justice.
Media AppearancesJournalists from the Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Democracy Now, and the BBC, among many other media outlets, have sought him out as an expert.
MULTISPECIES ETHNOGRAPHY
In academic circles, Eben Kirksey is perhaps best known for his work in multispecies ethnography—a field that situates contemporary scholarship on animals, microbes, plants, and fungi within deeply rooted traditions of environmental anthropology, continental philosophy, and the sociology of science.
Download "The Emergence of Multispecies Ethnography" (PDF)
Teaching
Eben Kirksey has taught at some of the most renowned and innovative higher education institutions like Princeton University, where he was the 2015-2016 Barron Visiting Professor in the Environment and Humanities, and Deep Springs, a small college in the High Sierra desert where student create the curriculum in collaboration with faculty.
graduate studentsNew Book
The Mutant Project
"A riveting jaunt to the cliff-edge of the future, where scientists, engineers, patients and biohackers struggle over the power, function and meaning of human gene editing...Empathetic, provocative and probing, it is a must read."
--Alondra Nelson, author of The Social Life of DNA
