Issue 5, a collaboration with Travis Mitzel, considers the larger context of the Spotted Lanternfly's arrival to Pennsylvania and its spread in North America. We examine the media buzz and “invasion” rhetoric of the viral “STOMP!” campaigns, the history of the insect’s preferred plant, Tree of Heaven, in Pennsylvania, and novel coexistence on a planet ravaged by human industry and climate change. What does it mean to be invasive to an already transformed and novel ecosystem?
The issue was organized, designed, and produced by Erin Mallea and Travis Mitzel. It features an excerpt from an interdisciplinary roundtable organized by Noah Theriault (Associate Professor of History, Carnegie Mellon University), Nicole Heller (Associate Curator of Anthropocene Studies, Carnegie Museum of Natural History), and Emily Wanderer (Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh) on the Spotted Lanternfly at the American Ethnological Society’s Spring 2024 Conference in Pittsburgh, PA. The issue concludes with an essay by Maria Ryabova, PhD Candidate in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh, focused on the development and implications of a spotted lanternfly killing robot within larger robotics research ecosystems.
–A.R. 11/8/24
