Mat Keel is a critical political ecologist, sculptor, and curator. He is trained in Anthropology and Geography and is an ABD PhD candidate at Louisiana State University. He holds a BA from U-Mass Amherst and an MA from UCLA. His current research proposes the viability of non-representational ethnography and focuses on plantation afterlives and their quotidian reproduction. With his wife Liz Lessner, he co-founded Yes We Cannibal, a project space for new art and thought in Baton Rouge in 2020.
PhD Candidate, Geography and Anthropology
227 Howe-Russell-Kniffen Geoscience Complex, Louisiana State University
mkeel6@lsu.edu / mat.keel@gmail.com | 240-595-9421
Advisors: Helen Regis (chair), Chris Barrett (English), Sarah Franzen
Degrees
PhD, Anthropology Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge exp. early 2025
Doctoral Research, Geography University of Bristol, UK 2015-6
MA, Geography University of California, Los Angeles 2015
BA, Geography University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Awards and Fellowships
- Everett Award, Baton Rouge Arts Council 2024
- La Baldi Fellowship 2022
- Louisiana Project Grant 2022
- Monroe Fellowship 2022
- American Ethnological Society Small Grants 2021
- Graduate Assistantship, Ethics Institute, Louisiana State University 2019-2021
- Graduate Assistantship, Anthropology and Geography, Louisiana State University 2019-2021
- Alumni Award, University of Bristol 2015-2016
Peer-Reviewed Publications
- “Yes We Cannibal Panel Discussion: Reading, Unearthing and Eating Anthropocentrism with Cesar and LOIS” (with Liz Lessner) Anthropology of Consciousness, 2022
- “Listen Liberal, another world is actual: Whiteness and political ontology in the psychedelic renaissance” Anthropology of Consciousness, 2022
Book Reviews
- “Book Review: A World of Many Worlds by Marisol de la Cadena and Mario Blaser “AAG Review of Books 9(2) 2021
- “Book Review: The Political Sublime by Michael J Shapiro” AAG Review of Books (7)1 2019
Other Publications
- “On Freak Space, the Risk of the Subject and the Deferral of Philip Guston” (with Liz Lessner as Yes We Cannibal) REFUSE: A Journal of Iconoclasms 1(1) 2021
- “Foraging Wild Mushrooms” (as Yes We Cannibal) Earthbound Almanac 2021
Select Work Experience
- Co-Founder and Co-Director Yes We Cannibal, Baton Rouge, LA 2020-2024
Prolific experimental space for new art and thought
https://yeswecannibal.org - Assistant to the Editor AAG Review of Books 2019-20
Selected Invited Lectures
- “Triggering the Plantation Unconscious / Against Psychedelic Liberalism” Cultivate Rockville, MD. 2021
- “Horizontal Responses to the Opioid Epidemic” La Terre Institute. New Orleans, LA. 2018
- “Life to Death, Flower to Needle, Afghanistan to West Virginia: Contemporary and Historical Geographies of the Opioid Epidemic” Shepherd University Shepherdstown, WV. 2018
Selected Conference Presentations
- “Hegel and Viveiros de Castro” RGS-IBG 2022, Presenter
- “More-than-Earth: Mutiny Ecologies.” World Ecology Research Network. Online, 2021. Organizer and Presenter.
- “Hard Time in the Garden of Eden: Agency and Original Sin in the Gnostic Anthropocene.” Consciousness Reframed. Porto, Portugal. 2018. Presenter.
- “The Post-Ferguson Police State.” Organizer, AAG. Chicago, IL 2015. Organizer.
Selected Workshops
- Decolonizing Knowledge / Power: Postcolonial Studies, Decolonial Horizons. Barcelona. 2016
- Decolonizing the Anthropocene. Kings College, London. 2015
Academic Work Experience
- Instructor of Record, LSU Anthropology and Geography 2020
- Teaching Assistant, LSU Anthropology and Geography 2019-2021
- Adjunct Instructor Shepherd University, Geography and Sociology 2018
- Teaching Assistant, Bristol University (UK) Geographical Sciences 2015-6