Jasmine PISAPIA

JASMINE CLOTILDE PISAPIA

www.jasmineclotildepisapia.com

ACADEMIC POSITIONS

2025–               Researcher and Principal Investigator, Ca’ Foscari University, Venice, Italy

2024–2025       Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICI), Berlin, Germany

2022–2024       Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Anthropology, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

EDUCATION

Ph.D., Sociocultural Anthropology, Columbia University

Thesis: "Inscriptions of Poison: Aesthetics, Remediation, and Environmental Catastrophe in Contemporary Italy’s Postindustrial South" Committee: Rosalind Morris, Michael Taussig, Marilyn Ivy, John Pemberton, Jason Pine

M.A., Comparative Literature and Media Studies, Université de Montréal

Thesis: Image et survivance en anthropologie visuelle: Ernesto De Martino et l’ethnographie interdisciplinaire (Supervisor: Philippe Despoix)

B.A., Comparative Literature and Humanities, Université de Montréal

RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS

Environmental crisis, toxicity, visual culture and the anthropology of images, aesthetics, intermediality and media studies, literary theory and performance, anthropology of the body and embodiment, feminist studies, historical anthropology

FELLOWSHIPS & RESEARCH GRANTS

2025–28:  Italian Ministry of University and Research
Principal Investigator for a 3-year research grant to develop the project “Ecologies of Performance: A Multimodal Ethnography of Environmental Violence and Embodied Resistance in the Land of Fires, Italy,” based at Ca’ Foscari University, Venice, Italy 

2022–24: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)
Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Anthropology 

2023: Canada Council for the Arts, Theater Division
Research grant for the development of theater performance in Terzigno, While You Were Asleep 

2018–19: Wenner-Gren Foundation in Anthropology   
Dissertation Fieldwork Grant 

2017: Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University
Graduate Research Travel Fellowship 

2013–17: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)
Multi-year Doctoral Fellowship 

2013–16: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)
Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship (Award declined to study outside of Canada)

2013–16: Fonds Québécois de Recherche Société et Culture
Doctoral Fellowship (Award declined to accept SSHRC).

2012–13: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)
Joseph-Armand Bombardier CGS Master’s Scholarship 

2012:Faculty of Advanced Studies, Université de Montréal
Robert-Bourassa Excellence Fellowship for European Studies 

2007–08: Faculty of Advanced Studies, Université de Montréal
MELS International Residency Fellowship, Università di Bologna, Italy 

PUBLICATIONS

Book:

Taken By Poison: Possession and Pollution in Italy’s Postindustrial South

[Under peer review] 

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles:

“Poisonous Images: Aesthetics, Environmental Crisis, and Death in Taranto.” Cultural Anthropology (forthcoming, May 2026).

“Ariadne in the Tiergarten: Kracauer’s Photographic Ethnography of the Detail.” Visual Anthropology Review (accepted for publication, under revision).

“‘Tristezza Siderurgica.’” In “Retourner (la nostalgie) / Returning (Nostalgia),” edited by André Habib, Suzanne Paquet, and Carl Therrien. Special issue, Intermédialités/Intermediality: History and Theory of the Arts, Literature, and Technologies 39 (2022): 1–35.

“Per un’antropologia estetica della crisi ecologica: teatro, arti visive, e ‘crisi della presenza’ nella città di Taranto.” In “Restituire. Un approccio multimediale,” edited by Lucia Portis and Angela Biscaldi. Special issue, Antropologia 9, no. 3 (2022): 111–132.

“Slow Motion and Sports: Corporeal ‘Imageries,’ Hypnosis, and Transfigured Time.” In “Sports,” edited by Astria Suparak and Brett Kashmere. Special issue, INCITE Journal of Experimental Media & Radical Aesthetics 7/8 (2016–2017): 258–275.

“Through the Keyhole: (Photographic) Desire and the Astronomical Imagination.” In “The Night,” edited by Will Straw and Christie Pearson. Special issue, Scapegoat: Architecture, Landscape, Political Economy 9 (2016): 193–206.

“Behind the Scenes of the Sea Theater: Conversations with Michael Taussig (Columbia University) and Hélène Baril (Visual Artist).” Seachange: Arts, Communication, Technologies 1, no. 5 (2014): 108–145.

“Archives du pathos. Ernesto de Martino et la survivance.” In “Archiver/Archiving,” edited by Éric Méchoulan. Special issue, Intermédialités/Intermediality: History and Theory of the Arts, Literature, and Technologies 18 (2011): 45–69.

“Archives of Pathos: Image, Survival, and Ernesto de Martino’s Interdisciplinary Ethnography.” Visual Ethnography 2, no. 1 (2013): 1–26.  

Book Chapters:

“Through the Keyhole: Photographic Desire and the Astronomical Imagination.” In Night Fever: Film and Photography After Dark, edited by Shanay Jhaveri, 347–354. Köln: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, 2024.

“Of Fireworks and Fireflies: Apotropaic Performances in Anthropology,” co-written with Valentina Bonifacio (introduction to the Italian translation, by Michele Bandiera and Enrico Milazzo, of Michael Taussig’s Mastery of Non-Mastery in the Age of Meltdown). In Michael Taussig, L’arte del non-dominio nell’era dello sfaldamento globale, 9–20. Milano: Meltemi Editore, 2023.

“Visioni di polvere. Lutto, lavoro e bonifica nel cimitero di Taranto.” In Il Ritmo dell’Esperienza: Nove Casi Etnografici per Ripensare l’Etnografia dei Conflitti Ambientali, edited by Valentina Bonifacio and Rita Vinaello, 47–88. Padova: Cooperativa Libraria Editrice Università di Padova, 2020.

Translation:

Marcel Mauss, “Excerpts of The Nation,” co-translated with Nicholas Elliott. Grey Room 102 (forthcoming, Winter 2026).

Collaborations & Special Issues:

[In progress:] “Family Films,” co-edited with André Habib. Special Issue, Hors Champ. Contributions from Diana Allan, Ali Feser, Chantal Partamian, Courtney Stephens, Milo Adami, Daniel Angeles, Edouard Arnoldy, Sonny Walbrou, Mohammad Reza Amiri, Seham Shaheem, and Louise Bourque.    

“L’Urlo dell’Asino di Michael Taussig e altre storie da Taranto.” Special Issue, Epidemia 02. October 2019, published by the Collettivo Epidemia, with texts by: Michael Taussig (co-translated with Janos Chiala), Franco La Cecla, Michele Loiacono, Isabella Mongelli, and Carolina Saquel.

SELECTED PRESENTATIONS

2025     “Reflections on the Ethnographic Image.” Panel co-organized with Rosalind Morris and Emily Hoffman, American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, November 19–23, New Orleans, United States.

2025     “Of Dust, Volcanoes, and Death: Timescales of Disaster and the Everyday.” Presentation at the conference Scale: A Fragmentary Atlas for the Humanities, Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICI), October 5–7, Berlin, Germany.

2025     “Metabolic Rifts in the Underworld: Forensic Images and Intergenerational Justice in Taranto.” Presentation at the conference Geoanthropology: Metabolism, Legal Imagination, and Geopraxis, June 9–11, Venice, Italy.

2025     “Between Ecological Psychosis and Environmental Catharsis: Reading the Unsettled Landscapes of the Peasant of Bern.” Invited talk at the Institute of Social Anthropology, April 29, Bern, Switzerland.

2024     “Vessel and Voice: Collective Theater-Making in New York and Naples.” Presentation at the workshop Images, Sound, and Performance as Ways of Knowing, organized by Valentina Bonifacio and Lisa Stevenson, Ca’ Foscari University, March 4–8, Venice, Italy. 

2023     “Le Vite Postume del Veleno.” Invited talk in the Department of Humanities at Ca’ Foscari University, December 11, Venice, Italy.

2023     “The Future Caught in Hindsight: Temporal Redoublings in Poisonous Images.” Presentation for the panel “Poisons and Their Doubles,” co-organized with Sandra T. Hyde, American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, November 15–19, Toronto, Canada.

2023     “Between Nature and You: Nature Technology and Augmented Body in Italy’s Postindustrial South.” Invited talk at the International Center for Cultural Studies, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, August 11, Taipei, Taiwan.

2023     “Global Pathogens, Local Pathologies: Toward a More Than Human Understanding of Biosecurity.” Convener, session at STS Italia Conference, June 29, Bologna, Italy.

2023     “The Afterlives of Poison: Aesthetics and Environmental Crisis in Southern Italy.” Invited talk at McGill Speakers Series (Department of Anthropology), March 13, Montreal, Canada.

2023     “Co-Creation in Theater Arts as Pedagogy of Social Inquiry.” Invited talk at CUNY Education      Conference: Rethinking Voice and Power in Education, February 20, New York, United States.

2022     “Visions of Dust: Labor, Mourning, and Toxic Decontamination.” Presentation at the panel “(Dis)placing the Dead, (Un)earthing the Truth: The Politics of Death, Graves, and Grief,” organized by Leslie Sabiston, American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, November 9–13, Seattle, United States.

2022     “Translating the End of the World: A Conversation with Dorothy Zinn and Jasmine Pisapia about Translating Ernesto De Martino’s Last Masterwork, La fine del mondo.” Columbia University, Department of Anthropology, Society of Fellows & Heyman Center for the Humanities, Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life, April 28, New York, United States.

2021     “‘Air at the End of the World’: Reading Taranto’s Environmental Crisis with Ernesto De Martino.” Invited talk at the University of Cologne, Crisis, Apocalypse, and Millenarianism in the Contemporary World: A Workshop on Ernesto De Martino, organized by Martin Zillinger and Dorothy Zinn, November 30, Cologne, Germany.

2018     “Appunti da Taranto.” Presentation at the Italian Society of Medical Anthropology (SIAM) at the University of Perugia, Italy.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Department of Humanities, Ca’ Foscari University, Venice, Italy

Winter 2026      Visual Anthropology

Course design and teaching of an MA-level course on the theory and methods of visual and intermedial anthropology, from early cinema and the history of ethnographic film to contemporary ethnographic practices and collaborative arts.                       

Fall 2023          Anthropology of Development and Environmental Conflicts        

Course design and teaching of an MA-level course on the anthropology of development and environmental politics (in Italian).

Department of Anthropology, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

Winter 2024      Theories of Culture and Society

Course design and teaching of a large, undergraduate introductory course on social and cultural theory (de Saussure, Freud, Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Mauss, Lévi-Strauss, to Geertz, Foucault, Butler, Strathern, Sahlins, Favret-Saada, Taussig; contemporary debates in critical indigenous studies; anti-colonial approaches to anthropology).

Fall 2022          Topics in Ethnography: Toxic Landscapes

Course design and teaching of an advanced, 400-level undergraduate seminar on toxicity and environmental violence as explored by texts from anthropology and media arts (film, photography, performance, literature, poetry).

Department of Anthropology, Columbia University, New York, United States

Spring 2020      Documentary / Ethnography / Film: Exploration and Experimentation

Teaching Assistant for a class taught by Professor Rosalind Morris (grading, holding discussion sections, mentoring students individually).

Spring 2017      Sorcery and Magic

Teaching Assistant for a class taught by Professor Michael Taussig (grading, holding discussion sections, mentoring students individually).

ARTISTIC AND CURATORIAL WORK

2023–               Dramaturgy / direction: While You Were Asleep [in progress]. Theater project on the environmental crisis of “Land of Fires,” near Mount Vesuvius, co-created with activists from the community center Le Ginestre in Terzigno and playwright and director Richard Maxwell. Funded by a Canada Council for the Arts “research-creation” grant.

2024                 Dramaturgy / direction: Festival d’Aix-en-Provence Multidisciplinary Residency. Collaboration with curator and dramaturg Piersandra Di Matteo on the creation of a performance piece for an opera festival; staging of the Lettere da una tarantata, with Berlin-based choreographer Jule Flierl. Aix-en-Provence, July 7, 2024.  

2023                Curator / organizer: Seeing in the Dark: Cinema, Resource Extraction, and the Afterlives of Gold. Screening and conversation around the work of Rosalind Morris, with Valentina Bonifacio, Francesca Tarrocco, Lorenzo D’Angelo, and Lisa Stevenson. Organized with the New Center for Environmental Humanities (NICHE) at Ca’ Foscari University and the Critical Media Lab (CML) at McGill University. November 23, Cinema Giorgione, Venice, Italy.

2022                Dramaturgy / performance: Graceland. Directed by Katiana Gonçales Rangel, produced by New York City Players. Dramaturgy and collaborative writing during a residency at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, on Governors Island, NY (February to April). Performances May 17–18, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island, NY.

2022                Curator / organizer: Expanded Nature: Ecologies of Experimental Cinema. Film screenings and lectures by Elio Della Noce (Laboratoire LESA) and Emmanuel Lefrant (Light Cone); with the Cinémathèque Québécoise, McGill University, Anthropology for the Ecozoic (L4E), Critical Media Lab (CML). October 13–17, Montreal, Canada.

2022                Curator / organizer: Overexposed: Sandra Lahire’s Anti-Nuclear Trilogy. Film screening of works by British feminist filmmaker Sandra Lahire on the nuclear contamination of Ontario’s Serpent River; panel discussion with anthropologists and filmmakers Lisa Stevenson, Cathy Lee Crane, Amélie Ward, and Ariane Lorrain in collaboration with LUX Moving Image London. September 30, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.

2022                Curator: On n’enchaîne pas les volcans. Experimental film program on volcanos, commissioned by the Hermann Nitsch Museum, featuring works by Malena Szlam, Colectivo Los Ingrávidos, Philippe Côté, and Paulo Abreu and Haroun Tazieff. Screening overlooking Mount Vesuvius with volcanologist Sandro De Vita from the Vesuvius Observatory. Presented as part of the Independent Film Show. June 16, Naples, Italy.

2021                Dramaturgy / conception: The Vessel. Performance on a boat in New York City harbor, co-conceived with Katiana Gonçales Rangel, directed by Richard Maxwell, and produced by the New York City Players. June 1–3 and September 22, 23rd St. Skyport Marina, New York, United States.

2020                Dramaturgy / direction: What This Stillness Brought Us. Online oral history project during Covid-19, co-directed with Katiana Gonçales Rangel, produced by the experimental theater company New York City Players (see: www.nycplayers.org/itd/).

2020                Co-curator: Film Times/Timely Films. Weekly screening and discussion series on film works at the crossroads of cinema and anthropology, co-curated with Rosalind Morris (online, March–July 2020).

2019                Curator: Il Reincanto della Natura: Movimenti Sfuggenti e Oscuro Surrealismo. Three days of screenings, performances, and lectures, including Michael Taussig, Isabella Mongelli, San Francisco collective Future Farmers, José Segebre, and the Collettivo Epidemia. MACRO Asilo Contemporary Art Museum, May 15–17, Rome, Italy.

2017                Dramaturgy: The Second Wedding of Yasmin Blessing to Jeff Jackman. Directed by Tory Vazquez and produced by the New York City Players. Presented at The Performance Garage, July 1–2, New York, United States.

2010–13           Curator: Festival du Nouveau Cinéma: Experimental Film and Performance Division

(FNC Lab). Selection of over 300 projects, including experimental films, expanded cinema performances, web-based audiovisual works, installations, artist symposia, and panels.   

AFFILIATIONS

2025–26           Visiting Scholar, Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICI), Berlin, Germany

2025–               Member, American Anthropological Association (AAA)

2022–               Member, Critical Media Lab, McGill University (dir. L. Stevenson and D. Allan)

2022–               Member, Centre de recherche intermédiale sur les arts, les lettres et les techniques (CRIalt)

2019–               Member and Co-Founder of Collettivo Epidemia

LANGUAGES:  

French (native speaker)

English (fluent)

Italian (fluent)