Birdsong in the Machine is a soundscape composition that explores the evolving relationship between natural and artificial worlds through the story of the Streaked Horned Lark (Eremophila alpestris strigata), a threatened coastal songbird native to the Pacific Northwest. The central research question is: How can artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) enhance environmental storytelling to amplify the voices of endangered species and reimagine human-nature-technology relations? By integrating AI-generated audio, wildlife recordings, and digital sound processing, this project critically examines the paradoxical role of technology as both a disruptor and preserver of ecological systems. Inspired by my lifelong connection to technology and deep appreciation for the natural world, Birdsong in the Machine reflects on the impacts of technological progress on the Streaked Horned Lark. The project draws from Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto and the works of Bernie Krause and Thom van Dooren, challenging the perceived divide between the natural and artificial. It envisions a future where these realms coexist harmoniously, fostering collaboration rather than conflict. This composition combines recordings of the lark’s song and habitat with AI-generated audio, using machine learning models to emulate and predict natural soundscapes. Digital audio processing techniques integrate these elements into a cohesive narrative. Bibliographic, archival, and ethnographic research reinforce the ecological and artistic focus of the composition. Through its juxtaposition of organic and AI-generated sounds, Birdsong in the Machine illuminates the paradox of technology’s role in ecological degradation and preservation. The soundscape fosters empathy and awareness for endangered species while reimagining relationships between humans, nature, and technology. Future directions will explore the ethical implications of using AI in ecological art and expand collaborations with scientists and digital artists. Ultimately, this piece stands as both environmental advocacy and an artistic experiment, challenging audiences to rethink their place in the interconnected natural and artificial worlds.

The Kinnar are a South Asian genderqueer community, who possess the power of shraap or ashirwaad - the power to curse or bless. The use their powers to perform blessing (badhai), sex, and begging work. While they are regarded as deities and a "third gender," they have historically been othered in South Asia's dominant colonial, cultural, and religious archives. These archives paradoxically narrate the Kinnar as less-than-human and more-than-human, trapping them in the ontological category of the "non-human." In my multi-genre, multi-modal book, Of Ghosts & Gods, I seek to understand the development of Kinnar identity and de-humanization. I ask three main, interwoven questions: (1) How do Kinnar peoples narrativize themselves? (2) How have their identities and lives been (de)constructed under various empires (Mughal, British, contemporary Hindu fundamentalist)? (3) How have they managed to survive - despite and with - a paradoxical identity under empire? I amalgamate several Kinnar testimonies, Hindu epics, Burke Museum archives, and personal experiences to get at this inquiry. I bring these sources together through ethnographic and critically fabulative methodologies, in an effort to amplify and ally with Kinnar voices. Through this book, I want to help visibilize the Kinnar peoples in ways they may wish to be made visible. It is important to do so, as imperial projects invested in eliminating the Kinnar relied on gross misrepresentation of the community to justify their dehumanization. The urgency of this work increases when we recognize that the Hindu-fundamentalist administration of 2025 India continues this work, limiting Kinnar livelihoods through its unquestioned religious assumptions. I am not a member of the Hijra, Kinnar, Khwajasarai or other South Asian genderqueer communities. To re-write archival violence therefore, Of Ghosts & Gods strives to place Kinnar voices before my own. 

How do photographic archives “animalize” or “humanize” animals in enclosed cultural spaces, like museums and zoos? I analyze the work of photographers Eadweard Muybridge, George Wheelhouse, Jill Greenberg, and Britta Jaschinski, and taxidermist Damien Hirst to interrogate the terms “animalize” and “humanize” by attempting to distinguish between animal/animalized and human/humanized couplings. To understand the term “animalize” and our aversion to being likened to animals, I argue what we are so afraid of is not being animal, but occupying the attached social position—being objectified and dehumanized. In visual media, this objectification manifests through the visual capture and frozenness of animals. Meanwhile, there are two approaches to “humanization.” The conventional one—“humanization through familiarization”—engages with the similarities between humans and animals through the anthropomorphized positioning of animals. The second, less conventional approach, which I argue deserves more attention, is what I call “humanization through defamiliarization.” This concept draws on Deleuze and Guattari’s idea of “becoming animal,” entailing a direct addressal of the animal that bypasses its appropriation for aesthetic or symbolic means and presents it outside of familiar contexts. Inspired by Jaschinski whose photography of zoo animals exemplifies the process of “becoming-animal,” I created my own images of animals from the Woodland Park Zoo that are both in accordance with and a direct response to her portrayals. While the animals in her photos draw their ostensible power from the darkness of the exposure, the animals in my photos reclaim the “voracious” and “all-exposing” light with the aid of my compositional and technical choices. Finally, I discuss the politics of looking at captive animals and decenter the very medium of sight to perhaps make space for the multisensorial encounters our bodies (human and other-than-human) are capable of.

This project aims to challenge the traditional way we teach about difficult and violent history throughout K-12 education by using 9/11 and the War on Terror as a case study. I ultimately argue that by presenting multiple competing narratives, children’s literature provides a potential solution for introducing nuanced conversation into children’s history education. The research question guiding this project is how does children’s literature complicate mainstream narratives about 9/11 in K-12 education? As part of this project, I conducted a qualitative survey of UW undergraduate students to explore their experiences of learning about 9/11 and the War on Terror as children. I compared the results of this survey to existing research describing what K-12 educators are claim to be teaching in their classrooms today. As part of this project I also analyzed different historical narratives about the 9/11 era, both outside of and within children’s literature. I find that across mediums and experiences, the dominant narrative of 9/11 indoctrinates young Americans into a War on Terror attitude which casts America as a blameless victim in the lead-up and aftermath of 9/11 and quiets dissent against state action in response to national security threats. 

This project analyzes the Blade Runner films in order to rethink the cyborg, a theory articulated by Donna Haraway as a metaphor that transgresses binaries which uphold systems of oppression, such as the distinctions between male/female, organic/inorganic, and human/nonhuman. For Haraway, the cyborg is a paragon of agency and liberation; however, Blade Runner imagines a world in which cyborgs – in this case human-like androids called replicants – entrench capitalist ideals in addition to racist and anthropocentric hierarchies. In the films, the replicants are coded as ambiguous racial Others who flexibly inhabit the symbolic position of Black, Asian, and white persons. Yet they are still placed above non-white humans within the racial hierarchy of the films because of their contributions to the capitalist and colonial projects of the future. In other words, they take on the role of a “model minority” desired for their production of capital, yet despised for being quintessentially non-human. The replicant-cyborg in Blade Runner reflects the societal desire for a class of laborers that will submit to capitalist interests, demonstrating (contra Haraway) its failure to disrupt established systems of power. However, while this paper interrogates our faith in the potential of the cyborg, it would be remiss to disavow this figure completely. In light of the cyborg’s associations with capitalist ideals, how might we reconsider it and our relationship with new technologies as they emerge? How can we conceptualize a future in which entanglements with technology are liberating rather than oppressive? These are ongoing questions for this project, which I explore in returning to Blade Runner.

This project critically examines online narratives about human and more-than-human cloning, with a focus on the spread of misinformation, radicalization, conspiracies, and their dangerous impact. At first glance, discussions about human vs. more-than-human cloning differ significantly. Human cloning is commonly considered morally objectionable, with supporters often forming part of controversial communities. In contrast, more-than-human cloning frequently sparks curiosity and, in some contexts, is encouraged. It is viewed not as an "act against God" but as a testament to human intelligence and dominance. This difference in responses raises many questions: Why are responses so dissimilar? How does online discourse drive these reactions? And can these distinctions--these different understandings of personhood and "life"--reinforce or perpetuate ideologies that cause harm? To answer these questions, I examine academic explorations of cloning and compare them with ones found all across the digital sphere-from social sites such as Reddit, X (formerly known as Twitter), and 4chan, to YouTube comment sections. Using a digital, “websplorer” approach, I analyze different perspectives on cloning, ranging from the "manosphere"-- interconnected misogynist online communities, scientism, and how they relate to the more-than-human. After a critical interrogation of these perspectives, I invite the user to consider an alternative, perhaps more ethical, approach to discussing cloning, one that does not reinforce heteronormativity, human exceptionalism, or pro-eugenic views. This alternative approach includes an exploration and critique of the Western concept of “personhood” and its limitations regarding cloned life, human and more-than-human.