This chapter argues that twenty-first-century poetry, notably by Port-au-Prince-based poets takes up the vexed theorization of contemporary Haitian public life, deploying and recuperating the centuries-old knowledge of the Vodou lwa Papa Loko and his avatars (the butterfly and the wind). The chapter considers poet and writer James Noël’s challenge to readers of contemporary Haitian poetry to grapple with the troubling quotidian realities of present-day Haitian civil society. In particular, I examine the fugacity of what I refer to as Lokoian ethics as a means of, first, advocating for an ethos of the non-predatory through an ecocritical analysis of the butterfly (in contrast with the dragonfly); and, second, decoupling the binary of staying/leaving, debunking the longstanding debate over whether staying or leaving Haiti is ‘better’ for the country, for one’s family, for one’s own future. In particular, the chapter works with the poetry of James Noël and Lyonel Trouillot, putting them into conversation with poetry by Getro Bernabé, Georges Castera, and Ida Faubert.

Insects are the most abundant and diverse group of animals on Earth. They are critical to ecosystem function in terrestrial and aquatic systems, yet they are one of the most understudied groups of organisms. Only a small proportion of the more than five million insect species have been assessed by the IUCN Red List. For most of these species, there is not enough evidence to know what is happening to their populations. In fact, for most insect species globally, there is very little data available on where they live, how they live and what environmental conditions they need to persist in the long term. A number of threats affect insect biology and life cycles generally, including climate change, habitat clearing, invasive species, use of broad-spectrum pesticides, and pollution of soil and waterways. These threats should be addressed immediately to prevent further declines in insect populations. To understand insects better, greater investment in research and documentation of the world’s insect diversity is urgently needed.

This chapter sheds light on different forms of cultural production that perpetuate stereotypes of racialized sexualization growing out of specific histories of US transnationalism in Southeast Asia. Tracing the Butterfly figure from Giacomo Puccini’s 1904 opera to David Henry Hwang’s repurposing of it to interrogate its imperial complicities and racist underpinnings, the chapter demonstrates how American culture has constructed its others to justify its colonial and neocolonial adventures. In so doing, the essay highlights some of the ways in which Asian and Asian American cultural producers, including Hwang and Jessica Hagedorn, have resisted those constructs both by inverting them and by establishing alternative ways to represent marginalized experiences under cultural hegemony. The aesthetic work performed by these writers and dramatists decenters the white psyche in the relationship between Asia and the United States. while also seeking to undermine the white supremacy that centering enabled.

The abnormal animal featured here is the Siamese cat, whose color pattern is due to a mutation in the tyrosinase gene, which makes the tyrosinase protein sensitive to temperature. We talk about how some species use temperature to dictate their coloration and how this can happen developmentally.