PhD Student Mat Keel has two peer-reviewed articles in the Fall issue of Anthropology of Consciousness, a special issue on the current state of Sacred Plant Medicine

The first paper, 鈥溾€� critically examines the current explosive entry of 鈥渕agic plants鈥� into financial markets and argues that restoring the originating link between so-called psychedelia and vegetal life, a product of European colonialism, affords a unique perspective on whiteness with potentially significant impacts for decolonial thought and its praxis.

The second paper, 鈥溾€� was co-authored with Mat鈥檚 wife and collaborator, (海角社区 College of Art and Design). The paper grew out of a panel discussion which took place in June 2021 as part of the programming for their experimental art gallery at 1600 Government St. in Baton Rouge.

The panel focused on a show by internationally recognized bio-artist collaborative who work with mycelial life and artificial intelligence. It featured a bevy of decorated academic guests including 海角社区 faculty Dr. Chris Barrett (English) and Robyn Reed (Landscape Architecture, recently departed to Los Angeles) among others.

Mat and Liz parse the discussants鈥� contributions to structure an argument that our collective peak experience of COVID engendered a widespread return to the experience of an original time that has been acquired, standardized and disciplined throughout modernity as borne of the European Enlightenment; its resurgence is closely connected to rethinking the space, nature and ethics of our alliance with vegetal and fungal life, as well as the imperative to be willing to imagine new ways to be human that are based on care and on love as an ontological method.