Peter Sands

• Animal studies
• Biopolitics
• Posthumanism
• Ecocriticism
• Science Fiction studies

My PhD research examines the role of species in the technological imagination of the Cold War, and draws influence from animal studies, biopolitical and posthumanist theory, ecocriticism and science fiction studies.

I am interested in the ways in which narratives of enclosure, contamination and disaster serve to secure the boundaries of the human both as biopolitical sovereign and as bare, or animal, life.

I am currently investigating the intersection between Cold War dreams of connectivity and interspecies relationality, with a focus on zoonotic disease and infection. My literary sources include works by Thomas Pynchon, J. G. Ballard, and Richard Matheson.