Mays Smithwick

Mays Smithwick is a PhD student in American Studies and Religious Studies. They are a fellow of Environmental Humanities at the Whitney Center for the Humanities. Mays investigates the formation of Western secularism and military imperialism, with a focus on the U.S. national security myth. They are particularly interested in the mutually constitutive relationship between technoscience, religion, and affect in the making of the modern subject and the recursive legitimation of state violence. 

Mays received their B.A. at Eugene Lang College the New School for Liberal Arts. They completed an M.A. in the Department of Experimental Humanities (XE) at New York University. Mays is involved in nuclear disarmament and nuclear justice organizing; they have worked with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the New York Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (NYCAN), and the Nuclear Truth Project. Their practice, in and outside of academia, is guided by a fundamental aim towards Indigenous self-determination, the abolition of borders, and collective interdependence.