Fields of Interest
Biography
My work has examined the role of extreme heat as a social, political, and ecological actor in modern South Asia. During the COVID-19 pandemic, my research explored the politics of empathy and captivity at Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo.
You can find my writing in Anthropological Quarterly, South Asia: The Journal of South Asian Studies, as well as in an edited volume from Vernon Press entitled Lost Kingdom: Animal Death in the Anthropocene.
I live and work in Seattle as a guest on the occupied homelands of Coast Salish peoples.
Research
Selected Research
- Tess Beschel, María Elena García, Nastasia Paul-Gera, J. Shelby House and Rachel Ann Rothenberg “‘The end of nature’: pedagogies of grief and more-than-human relations," in Lost Kingdom: Animal Death in the Anthropocene, eds. Arianne Conty and Wendy Wiseman (Delaware: Vernon Press, forthcoming).
- House, J. Shelby. Review of Animal Enthusiasms: Beyond Cage and Leash in Rural Pakistan by Muhammad Kavesh. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 45, no. 2 (March 2022): 394-395, https://doi.org/10.1080/00856401.2022.2040814.
- House, J. Shelby. Review of Crooked Cats: Beastly Encounters in the Anthropocene by Nayanika Mathur. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 45, no. 5 (Aug 2022): 944-946, https://doi.org/10.1080/00856401.2022.2107848.
- House, J. Shelby. Review of Uncivil City: Ecology, Equity and the Commons in Delhi by Amita Baviskar, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 44, no. 5 (Sept 2021): 1021-1022, DOI: 10.1080/00856401.2021.1970876 Download PDF
- J. Shelby House. "Viral Ethnographies: Humans, Animals, and One Health Governance in a Zoonotic Age.” Review essay of Rabies in the Streets: Interspecies Camaraderie in Urban India by Deborah Nadal and Viral Economies: Bird Flu Experiments in Vietnam by Natalie Porter. Anthropological Quarterly 93(4): 767-778.Download PDFAdviser: Radhika Govindrajan
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- House, J. Shelby. Zoo, Circus, Menagerie, Prison: Multispecies Captivity and Human-Animal Relations at Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo. Barclay Simpson Scholarship in Public, UW Simpson Center for the Humanities, Office of the Provost. Ongoing pre-dissertation pilot research, 2023-present.
Courses Taught
Winter 2025
Spring 2023
Winter 2023
Elementary Hindi (HINDI 101, 102, 103)
The Anthropology of Love & Sex (ANTH 269)
The Cultural Politics of Diet & Nutrition (ANTH 311)
Human Rights Law in Culture & Practice (ANTH 323, LSJ 321)
Intermediate Urdu (URDU 201)
Introduction to Public Speaking (COM 220)
Introduction to Environmental Anthropology (ANTH 210)