Speakable and Unspeakable ::
Interspecies Communication in Jordan Peele's NOPE
29 November 2022 — this page hosts a recorded conversation between myself and Matou, a brilliant multidisciplinary artist as well as my best friend and co-conspirator
Using Jordan Peele's film NOPE (2022) as our lens, we meditate on ideas of interspecies communications and the management of meaning—It is a dialogue on the ways we act and are acted upon by nonhuman animals and for which purposes. What ethical concerns must be considered in such correspondences? What kinds of psychic closure or comforts do they provide?
A full transcript will be made available on this page shortly.
speakers
Alimatou Demba, B.A. African American Studies and Comparative Literature (Columbia)
isaiah a. hines, B.A. Communication and Visual and Media Studies (CUNY Brooklyn College)
further reading
Amiot, Catherine & Bastian, Brock. (2014). Toward a Psychology of Human-Animal Relations. Psychological bulletin. 141. DOI:10.1037/a0038147
Laland, & Hoppitt, W. (2003). Do animals have culture? Evolutionary Anthropology, 12(3), 150–159. https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.10111
Lents, Nathan H., 'The Richness of Animal Communication,' Not So Different: Finding Human Nature in Animals. Columbia University Press: New York, NY, 2016. https://doi.org/10.7312/columbia/9780231178327.003.0011
"The Surprising Animal Science Behind Jordan Peele’s ‘Nope’." Science Friday. Featuring Kelsi Rutledge. Hosted by Ira Flatow. 2 September 2022. https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/nope-jordan-peele-animal-science-aliens/