Animacies is a book about reworldings as mel y chen traces the myriad ways that objects and affects move through and reshape zones of possibility for political transformation and queer resistance to neoliberal biopolitics at the same time animacies itself generates such transformations grounded in a generous expansive understanding of . Mel y chen animacies biopolitics racial mattering and queer affect animacies perverse modernities a series edited by judith halberstam and lisa lowe animacies biopolitics racial mattering and queer affect mel y chen duke university press durham and london 2012. In animacies mel y chen draws on recent debates about sexuality race and affect to examine how matter that is considered insensate immobile or deathly animates cultural lives toward that end chen investigates the blurry division between the living and the dead or that which is beyond the human or animal within the field of linguistics animacy has been described variously as a . As part of duke university presss perverse modernities series edited by judith halberstam and lisa lowe mel y chens animacies biopolitics racial mattering and queer affect a tour de force of theoretical work bridging asian american feminist queer of color disability and critical animal studies explores the various forces animating human and nonhuman life. Mel y chen is associate professor of gender womens studies at uc berkeley and director of the center for the study of sexual culture mel is also an affiliate of the center for race and gender the institute for cognitive and behavioral science the center for science technology medicine and society and the haas disability studies and lgbtq citizenship research clusters