Vetri Nathan

Fields of interest: Multispecies Studies, Environmental Humanities; Mediterranean Studies; Global Indigenous Cultures, Digital Media Studies; Food Studies, Italian Cinema

Affiliated Faculty: Food Studies and Digital Humanities

Professor Nathan’s scholarly interests include the study of the cultural foundations of environmental and cultural wellbeing, analyses of multispecies solidarity and kinship, and the exploration of the mobility and hybridity of cultural identities, particularly but not limited to Italy and the wider Mediterranean region. He is the founder and director of a new humanities lab: the Multispecies Futures Lab This lab is envisioned as an interdisciplinary gathering space to study multispecies entanglements and the connections between cultural discourse and practice, conflicts, climate change and habitat/biodiversity loss. For latest lab news, project status and events, and multispecies fun facts, please click on the lab link.

Professor Nathan’s new book, Our Multispecies Futures: Control, Care and Kinship in a Transformed World (University of Exeter Press, Fall 2026) proposes a new ecocultural sub-era of the Anthropocene called the Cybercene in order to analyze the intimate connections between the global digital revolution and planetary ecocultural health and sustainability. As lands burn, oceans boil, species go extinct and cultural conflicts multiply the book urgently calls for a paradigm-shift in humanity’s relationship to life on Earth.

Professor Nathan holds his M.A. and Ph.D. in Italian from Stanford University. Prior to joining UCLA in 2024, Professor Nathan taught at the University of Massachusetts Boston (2011-21) and at Rutgers University (2022-24). His first book, Marvelous Bodies: Italy’s New Migrant Cinema (Purdue University Press, 2017) explores contemporary Italian movies released between 1990 and 2010 that represent the nation’s cultural challenges and opportunities presented by immigration from the Global South. He continues to publish, teach and undertake Italy-related research on a range of topics such as cinema, migrations and food and sustainability studies.

His other current and future work via his lab includes showcasing the vibrancy, resilience and expertise of marginalized bio- and ecopolitical communities and Indigenous cultures, studies on the challenges and opportunities presented by cultural hybridity in Europe, initiatives within the multispecies posthumanities that seek the inclusion of previously excluded nonhuman (or “more-than-human”) bodies, lives and ecosystems (plants, animals, fungi, microorganisms, etc.), food and culinary ecocultural histories, as well as community engagement and outreach. He is a father to four very loving Siberian Huskies and also finds great joy in exploring the incredible and diverse landscapes of the American West.

Education

B.A. Connecticut College

Ph.D., Stanford University

M.A., Stanford University