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Timothy Gitzen

Assistant Professor

336.758.5976

Piccolo 112

Sociocultural Anthropologist

I am an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Wake Forest University and Core Member of the Centre for the Social Study of Microbes at the University of Helsinki. Broadly, my research focuses on science and technology studies, microbes and viruses, queer politics and theory, and security. I have published two books, the first about queer politics and national security in South Korea (Banal Security is free to download), and the second is about contemporary sex panics and queer youth sexuality in the United States and Europe (Unscripting the Present is available to download from ZSR Library).

My current research takes a radical turn north. It focuses on the knowledge production of scientists and bioartists (artists that use biological materials) working on/with microbes in the Arctic. The Arctic is warming much quicker than the rest of the world, already impacting the lives and livelihoods of those residing there. In addition to sea-level rise, climate change can lead to the thawing of permafrost and ice, releasing once-dormant microbes into unprepared ecosystems. Some of these microbes may contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and a thawing Arctic, while other ancient Pleistocene-era microbes may release and have undetermined impact on the ecosystem. Scientists are conducting novel research on both these dormant microbes and other vital microbes in the Arctic, while bioartists are thinking and working with these microbes to enable audiences to dwell in the uncertainty of climate change.

I suggest that by comparing scientists and bioartists’ fieldwork as a form of knowledge production, we can move away from an anthropocentric biosecurity understanding of microbes and toward productive relations to allay and even reverse climate change. My research project asks: What insights will emerge from the interactions of biological scientists and bioartists? How might their fieldwork practices yield comparable or disparate interpretations of the relationships among humans, microbes, and ice? How might they transform public understanding of climate change? By comparing fieldwork and knowledge-production processes, this project shifts attention away from observing microbes to working with microbes. I contend that their different fieldwork practices—for scientists, observation, measurement, experiments, and data collection; for bioartists, collecting biological materials and documenting environments and materials—will challenge the primacy of anthropocentric framings of climate change found in biosecurity ideologies and practices.

I spent the 2025-2026 academic year conducting ethnographic fieldwork in Finland with scientists and artists while also a Visiting Researcher at the Centre for the Social Study of Microbes at the University of Helsinki.

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