October 3
Earth Matters- Environmental Studies Colloquium
Jeannette Unite, Cape Town, South Africa
7 p.m., Olin Science Center
Jeanette Unite has mined for her paintbox since the 1990s. Whilst traveling through more than thirty countries she has accumulated an extensive personal archive of images and minerals from industry and mining. She has developed paint, pastel, and glass recipes guided by geo-chemists, paint-chemists and a ceramicist to develop this ‘eco-alchemic’ work. These mining artworks are made from the very mined material they interrogate. Conversations with Earth scientists, geologists, engineers, metallurgists and industrialists, and mining and geology historians have influenced her visual interpretation of the extractive industries.
October 4
Mining the artist’s PAINTBOX
Presentation, Demonstration, and Workshop with Jeannette Unite
4 p.m., Colby Museum of Art Lobby
October 6
Complicit Geographies: Artworks in response to geology, maps and the Oxford Earth Science/William STRATA Smith archive
Jeannette Unite
1 p.m., Keyes 105
October 6
Somehow a Past: New England Regionalism, 1900-1960
A Symposium
9 a.m.-5:15 p.m., with reception to follow
On the occasion of Marsden Hartley’s Maine, an exhibition organized by the Colby College Museum of Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Colby College will present the symposium, “Somehow a Past: New England Regionalism, 1900-1960.”
Taking its title from the autobiography of Marsden hartley, an artist closely associated with Maine, this gathering of leading scholars will explore the interest in regional, New England subjects among American artists who contributed to the development and maturation of modernism. For locations and additional information, please visit www.colby.edu/museum/somehow-a-past.
October 11
Environmental Studies Lunch Lecture Series
11:30 a.m., Dana / 012 Fairchild Dining Hall
Environmental studies alumnus Joel Alex ’08 shares his path from Colby to owning and operating North America’s largest floor malting facility. From community mapping to declining admittance to graduate school, Joel will talk about and answer questions on his experiences and insights while applying sustainable development principles at home.
Alex founded and runs Blue Ox Malthouse in Lisbon Falls, Maine. He currently sits on the boards of the North American Craft Maltsters Guild and The Ecology School where he previous worked as an ecology educator and has diverse professional backgrounds in education, community mapping/GIS, and conservation land management. Sponsored by the Environmental Studies Program.
October 12
Fall Migration Talk with Bernd Heinrich
5:00 p.m. reception Common Street Arts, 93 Main Street, Waterville
6:00 p.m. – 8 p.m. presentation at Waterville Opera House
Animal migration is a topic of many dimensions. It involves behavior, physiology, and ecology. There are also migratory similarities and differences between birds, mammals, insects, and fish. In collaboration with the exhibition into the forest, please join Common Street Arts for a free presentation by Bernd Heinrich who will discuss the fall bird migration and its contrast with other animals in terms of why and how they travel great distances.
Bernd Heinrich is a professor emeritus in the biology department at the University of Vermont and is the author of numerous books related to his research examining the adaptations of animals and plants to their physical environments. He also has written books on his personal reflections of nature. His latest book is “One Wild Bird at a Time”.
October 18
F. Russell Cole Distinguished Lectureship in Environmental Studies
The Quest for Sustainable Seas
Dr. Sylvia Earle
7 p.m., Page Commons/ Livestream: Lovejoy 100
Dr. Earle, National Geographic’s Rosemary and Roger Enrico Chair for Ocean Exploration, is an oceanographer, founder of Mission Blue, SEAlliance and Deep Ocean Exploration and Research. Earle has been called “Her Deepness” by The New York Times and “Living Legend” by the Library of Congress and was Time magazine’s first “Hero for the Planet.”
Her public lecture, The Quest for Sustainable Seas, will demonstrate how the ocean provides the underpinning of our economy, health, security, and the existence of life itself. Once thought to be infinitely resilient, the ocean is in trouble, and therefore, so are we. With equal parts warning and hope, she shows us how actions we take in the next ten years will matter more than what we do in the next one hundred years. For tickets and more information, contact Leslie Lima at [email protected] The event is currently sold out. There will be a live stream of the lecture shown at Lovejoy 100.
October 19
Environmental Showcase, hosted by the Buck Lab
2 p.m., Atrium and Room 141, Diamond Building
A two-hour event featuring student work on environmental projects:
2 p.m. Mix and mingle in the Atrium, opportunity to look at posters and displays
2:30 p.m. Presentations and films: Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Gail Carlson, Trustee Sandy Buck ’78, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Philip Nyhus, Miselis Professor of Chemistry Whitney King—film, Grace Yu ’19 and Reggie Huang ’19—film trailer
2:50 p.m. Mix/mingle resumes
3:00 p.m. Whitney King leads a tour of environmental studies labs in Olin, Arey, Keyes, and Mudd buildings
October 20
Noontime Art Talk: Audubon’s Insects and Birds
Noon, Colby Museum of Art galleries
Audubon’s bird illustrations are known for their lifelike qualities, capturing both the bird’s behavior and its environment. Join Dr. Frank Guarnieri and Research Associate for the Department of Biology Louis Bevier, and Margaret Aiken, Linde Family Foundation Coordinator of School and Teacher Programs as they discuss the process and importance of researching the insects from these illustrations.
October 20
Environmental Studies Film Screening
Okja (2017), Dir. Bong Joon-ho
7 p.m., Ostrove Auditorium, Diamond
For 10 idyllic years, young Mija has been caretaker and constant companion to Okja – a massive animal and an even bigger friend – at her home in the mountains of South Korea. But that changes when family-owned, multinational conglomerate Mirando Corporation takes Okja for themselves and transports her to New York, where an image-obsessed and self-promoting CEO has big plans for Mija’s dearest friend. With no particular plan but single-minded in intent, Mija sets out on a rescue mission. The gentle giant and the girl who raised her are caught in the crossfire between animal activism, corporate greed and scientific ethics. Starring: Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal, An Seo Hyun
October 24
Origins: Order vs. Chaos
Vittorio Loreto
7:00 p.m. Lovejoy 100
A lecture by Vittorio Loreto, full professor of physics of complex systems at Sapienza University and research leader at the ISI Foundation in Turin, where he coordinates the information dynamics group. Creativity and innovation are key elements in many different areas and disciplines since they represent the primary motor to explore new solutions in ever-changing and unpredictable environments. New biological traits and functions, new technological artifacts, new social, linguistic, and cultural structures, new meanings, are very often triggered by the mutated external conditions. Unfortunately, the detailed mechanisms through which humans, societies, and nature express their creativity and innovate are largely unknown. Loreto’s scientific activity is mainly focused on the statistical physics of complex systems. In the last few years, he has been active in the fields of granular media, complexity and information theory, complex networks theory, communication and language evolution, and social dynamics.
October 24
Environmental Studies Evening Lecture Series
Costly Cats: Supply and Demand Drivers of the Black Market Trade in Tigers, Lions, Cheetahs and Snow Leopards
Kristen Nowell, CAT Specialist Group
7:00 p.m. Olin, Olin 1
Kristin Nowell, with the cat Specialist group, will discuss the illegal trade of big cats, which poses a grave threat, driven by financial motivations of those who poach, sell and buy. The black market for each species is driven to varying degrees by supply (both from the wild and from modern industrial captive breeding or “farming”) and by consumer demand. These drivers include potential and actual costs of rural people living near predators which pose risks to life and livestock-based livelihoods, and perceived social status value on the part of relatively wealthy urban consumers, who are often motivated by sellers putting a modern spin on ancient traditions. While each of these markets is unique, they are also inter-linked: e.g., lions are being increasingly drawn into the tiger trade. Regulatory and enforcement efforts undertaken by governments over the past 25 years through the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) have achieved limited success, which could be undermined by one of the outcomes of negotiations at last year’s meeting.
October 25
Page Turning of Audubon’s Birds of America
Noon, Gladys Brooks Foundation Gallery
Join Lunder Curator for Whistler Studies Justin McCann as he turns the double elephant-sized pages of the Bien Edition of John James Audubon’s Birds of America.
October 28
Masterworks
Origins, annual humanities theme event
Colby Symphony Orchestra Jinwook Park, director
7:30 p.m., Lorimer Chapel
In its first concert of the season, the orchestra presents works by three German masters: Wagner’s The Overture and the dramatic “Pilgrim’s Chorus” from Tannhäuser; Brahms’s Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn; and Beethoven’s timeless Sixth Symphony, The Pastoral, which abounds with sounds and images of the German countryside.
November 1
Matter and Desire: An Erotic Ecology
Dr. Andreas Weber, eco-philosopher
7 p.m., Diamond / 122
Andreas Weber asks a radical and challenging question: Could it be that our planet is not suffering primarily from a financial crisis, or even an ecological one, but from a critical lack of love? In speaking of love and of eroticism, Weber is not referring to sentimental feelings, but to a new basis for ontology itself, based on a mix of cutting-edge biological findings and philosophical insights.
In this talk, he will discuss his new book Matter and Desire: An Erotic Ecology. Written in the tradition of John Muir and Rachel Carson, the book weaves personal narrative and lyrical descriptions with a discussion of ecology and psychology, offering a new—and necessary—way to move through nature to ultimately achieve a heightened sense of self-awareness. The book is part of Weber’s larger project of developing an eco-philosophy—or as Weber calls it, a “biopoetics”—for the Anthropocene.
Weber is a Berlin-based philosopher, biologist, and writer. He holds degrees in marine biology and cultural studies, and has collaborated with brain researcher and philosopher Francisco Varela. His books in English include: Enlivenment: Towards a Fundamental Shift in the Concepts of Nature, Culture and Politics (2013); The Biology of Wonder: Aliveness, Feeling, and the Metamorphosis of Science (2016); and Biopoetics: Towards an Existential Ecology (2016). Weber regularly contributes to major newspapers and magazines, such as National Geographic, GEO, and Die Zeit, and has won a number of awards for his writing. He teaches philosophy at Leuphana University, Lüneburg and at the University of Fine Arts, Berlin. Weber has two children. He lives in Berlin and Italy.
November 3
“Material, Environment, Architecture: The Artistic Process and Creating Space”
Alison Stigora
4 p.m., Colby Museum
Alison Stigora (Faculty Fellow in Sculpture, Colby) is a site-specific artist specializing in large-scale sculpture and installation. Her projects explore ideas of transparency, the relationship between humans and their environment, and the intersection of sculpture and architecture.
November 4
Colby Wind Ensemble
Eric Thomas, director
Origins, annual humanities theme event
7:30 p.m. Lorimer Chapel
Maurice Ravel’s Boléro has been featured in numerous films, where it suggests “evolution” from a primal point of origin. Excerpts from a few of these fi ms will be shown with accompaniment by the ensemble. The program also explores the evolution of the jazz trumpet with Allen Vizzutti’s stunning American Jazz Suite with guest soloist Mark Tipton. We’ll also visit the world of comics with Jess Langston Turner’s “Black Bolt,” Julie Giroux’s “Before The Sun,” and David Mairs’s “A Touch of the Union Jack.”
November 6
The Global Environmental Justice Documentary on Asia Event Series
Journalist/Activist Jianqiang Liu and Director Gary Marcuse
11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Robert’s Private Dining Room
Meet with Director Gary Marcuse and Journalist/Activist Jianqiang Liu on internship opportunities in making
documentaries on environmental protection and journalism in China.
4 p.m. Olin 1
Public lecture. “Search for Secret Mountain: Tibetan Culture and Environmental Protection” Jianqiang Liu, and Gary Marcuse speaks on global environmental justice documentaries on Asia.
7:00 – 8:30 pm Olin 1
Screening of the Award Winning “Waking the Green Tiger” (2011) dir. Gary Marcuse, the dramatic story of the rise of the first major grassroots environmental movement in China. Seen through the eyes of farmers, journalists, activists and a former government insider, the film traces the historical evolution of the movement and highlights an extraordinary campaign to stop a huge dam project slated for the Upper Yangtze River in southern China.
8:30 – 9:00 pm Olin 1
Q & A with Gary Marcuse and Jianqiang Liu
November 8
Environmental Studies Film Screening
Upstream Color (2013), Shane Carruth, director
7 p.m. Olin/ Olin 1
After unwittingly undergoing a series of bizarre experiments, a woman (Amy Seimetz) meets a kindred spirit (Shane Carruth) who may have experienced the same ordeal. They are drawn together, entangled in the life cycle of an ageless organism. Identity becomes an illusion as they struggle to assemble the loose fragments of wrecked lives.
November 15
Environmental Studies Lunch Lecture Series
What are the Environmental Humanities?: An Introduction to the Field and Careers
Chris Walker, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Environmental Humanities
11:30 a.m. Dana / Fairchild Dining Hall
Christopher Walker is Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Environmental Humanities at Colby College. He received his J.D. from Columbia Law School and Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara. His book project, Narratives of Decay, considers authors, artists, and scientists who speculate on environmental futures. 11:30 a.m. lunch, 12:00 lecture
November 16
Voices Not Heard: The Climate Fight of Malaysian Youth
Viewing and discussion with director Scott Brown
7:00 pm, Olin 01
Come see the documentary Voices Not Heard: The Climate Fight of Malaysian Youth, a film about climate justice, and have a discussion with one of the directors, Scott Brown, an Udall Scholar and graduate of Northwestern University (’17).
As climate change begins to wreak havoc, especially on the world’s developing nations, a 23-year-old Malaysian activist travels to Paris to represent young people from countries like his at the COP21 climate negotiations. His journey to discover his role as an activist on a global stage, to speak up for the underrepresented Global South, and to continue fighting now in the face of U.S. President Trump’s abandonment of the Paris Agreement, provides insight into the world of international climate negotiations and activism that is rarely reported to the public. View trailer here.
November 18
Invitation
Colby College Collegium Colby College Chorale with the Colby Kennebec Choral Society
Eric Christopher Perry, director
7:30 p.m. Lorimer Chapel
Invitation explores the origins of American musical styles and their influence on traditional compositional forms throughout history. Highlighting Carol Barnett’s The World Beloved: A Bluegrass Mass, in collaboration with the Bluegrass Music Association of Maine, other works include the complete Old American Songs by Aaron Copland, canons, catches, and rounds by Kirke Mechem, and selections from The Harmony of Maine (1792) by Supply Belcher, the “Handel of Maine.”
November 20
Rx: Protecting our Health from Climate Change in Maine, the Nation and the World
7:30 p.m., Ostrove Auditorium
Come hear students in ES364 “Climate Change, Justice and Health” talk about leading indicators of the health impacts of climate change, case studies of vulnerable populations, and the opportunities for protecting human health that climate action offers.
November 28
Environmental Studies Lunch Lecture Series
Chakaia Booker Talk
4:30 p.m. Bixler 178 (Given Auditorium)
In this lecture, sculptor Chakaia Booker reflects on her work, which uses discarded tires and other construction materials to explore ecological concerns, racial and economic difference, gender, and globalization.
November 29
Environmental Studies Film Screening
Beasts of the Southern Wild(2012), Dir. Benh Zeitlin
7 p.m. Olin / Olin 1
In a forgotten but defiant bayou community cut off from the rest of the world by a sprawling levee, a six-year-old girl exists on the brink of orphanhood. Buoyed by her childish optimism and extraordinary imagination, she believes that the natural world is in balance with the universe until a fierce storm changes her reality. Desperate to repair the structure of her world in order to save her ailing father and sinking home, this tiny hero must learn to survive unstoppable catastrophes of epic proportions.
February 11
The Day After Tomorrow
Environmental Humanities Film Screening
5:30 p.m., Arey 5
Paleoclimatologist Jack Hall must make a daring trek from Washington, D.C. to New York City to reach his son, trapped in the cross-hairs of a sudden international storm. The film depicts catastrophic climatic effects following the disruption of the North Atlantic Ocean circulation in a series of extreme weather events that usher in global cooling and lead to a new ice age.
Written and directed by Roland Emmerich. Starring Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ian Holm, Emmy Rossum and Sela Ward. (2014)
February 13
Lock-in: Design Parameters for a Carbon Neutral Future
Timothy Lock and Riley Pratt
Clara M. Southworth lecture series
5 p.m., Olin 1
Architects Timothy Lock and Riley Pratt, in collaboration with students in Colby’s Architectural Design Workshop, explore how architectural practice is changing for a carbon-neutral built environment and addressing the goals set by the Paris Accord and the American Institute of Architects 2030 commitment.
The Clara M. Southworth lecture series, endowed in 1969 by the interior designer from Portland, Maine, is meant to “bring annually to the campus a distinguished lecturer or lecturers to speak on a subject in the broad field of environmental design with emphasis on understanding some of the underlying philosophies of design which relate to the way in which men live.”
February 20
Burnt into Memory: How Brownfield Faced the Fire
Jo Radner
4:30 pm, Pugh Center, Cotter Union
In the space of a few hours on October 23, 1947, a furious wildfire destroyed almost all of the small western Maine town of Brownfield. Neighbors fought and fled the fire, then returned, determined to rebuild their community as best they could. Drawing on interviews with townspeople, letters, photographs, and newspaper reports, Radner tells an epic story of terror, courage, generosity, and hope.
Lovell storyteller Jo Radner spent a year interviewing people who experienced the Brownfield Fire – residents who did and did not lose their homes, as well as others who aided in the rescue and rebuilding effort. From those interviews and from letters and historical photographs and newspaper reports, Radner has created a powerful story of terror, courage, neighborly responsibility, recovery, and – yes – even humor.
February 27
Poetry Reading
Richard Blanco
Artist-in-Residence, Lunder Institute for American Art
7 p.m., Robinson Room, Miller Library
Richard Blanco is the fifth presidential inaugural poet in U.S. history—the youngest, first Latino, immigrant, and gay person to serve in such a role. Born in Madrid to Cuban exiled parents and raised in Miami, the negotiation of cultural identity and place characterize his body of work. His work is also influenced by his other career as an environmental engineer. “People sort of misunderstand and I have to clarify … I didn’t give up engineering to become a poet. I’ve been a poet-engineer all my life,” he said.
In 2013, he was a guest of honor at Florida Gulf Coast University’s Center for Environmental and Sustainability Education, because, in the words of its director, his poetry “explores our connections to place – our physical place, our place in the communities we inhabit, and our place in a complex and rapidly changing world.”
He is the author of the memoirs The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood and For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey; the poetry chapbooks Matters of the Sea, One Today, and Boston Strong; the poetry collections Looking for the Gulf Motel, Directions to the Beach of the Dead, and City of a Hundred Fires; a children’s book of his inaugural poem, “One Today,” illustrated by Dav Pilkey; and Boundaries, a collaboration with photographer Jacob Hessler. Blanco’s many honors include the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press, the Beyond Margins Award from the PEN American Center, the Paterson Poetry Prize, a Lambda Literary Award, and two Maine Literary Awards.
March 6
Oak Spring Lecture
Moving Our Most Vulnerable Communities from Surviving to Thriving
Mustafa Ali, The Hip Hop Caucus
7 p.m., Ostrove
Mustafa Ali is the Senior Vice President of Climate, Environmental Justice & Community Revitalization for the Hip Hop Caucus. The Hip Hop Caucus is a national, non-profit and non-partisan organization that connects the Hip Hop community to the civic process to build power and create positive change. As HHC Senior Vice President, he leads the strategic direction,expansion and operation of the Hip Hop Caucus’ portfolio on Climate, Environmental Justice and Community Revitalization. Mustafa is renowned as a National Speaker, Trainer and Facilitator specializing in Social Justice issues focused on revitalizing our most vulnerable communities. Throughout his career, Mr. Ali has conducted over 1,000 presentations across the country, including speeches, guest lecturers and trainings. He has also worked with over 500 domestic and international communities to secure environmental, health and economic justice. Mustafa Ali joined the Hip Hop Caucus, after working 24 years at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
March 8
Capturing the Ever-Present Story-Dragonflies I have seen
Brooke Williams
Tray dinner, 5:30-6:30 p.m., Roberts Private dining
Reading and reflection 7:00-8:00 p.m., Special Collections
Brooke Williams has spent the last thirty years advocating for wilderness. He is the author of four books, including Open Midnight, Halflives: Reconciling Work and Wildness, and The Story of My Heart, by Richard Jeffries, as rediscovered by Brooke Williams and Terry Tempest Williams. His journalistic pieces have appeared in Outside, Huffington Post, Orion, and Saltfront. Williams teaches a Colby Jan Plan course in Environmental Storytelling.
March 10
Musical Voyages
Colby Symphony Orchestra
Jinwook Park, director
7:30 p.m., Lorimer Chapel
The Colby Symphony Orchestra begins the spring semester with Dvorak’s Symphony no. 8—another work in the “pastoral” setting of the countryside, reminiscent of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony—and New York-based composer Emily Wong’s Symphony no. 1 Structures.
March 15
Flooded McDonald’s
Environmental Humanities Film Screening
7:30 p.m., Arey 5
Danish three-man art collective Superflex, whose work addresses consumerism and the environment, created this evocative 21-minute film in which a life-size replica of the interior of a McDonald’s burger bar is gradually flooded with water. Furniture is lifted up by the water, trays of food and drinks start to float around, electrics short circuit and eventually the space becomes completely submerged. Directed by Rasmus Nielsen, Jakob Fenger and Bjørnstjerne Reuter Christiansen. (2009)
March 20
Can Beauty Save the World?
John deGraaf
11:30 lunch, 12:00 lecture, Location TBD
Author, filmmaker and activist John de Graaf contends that a new focus on natural beauty and human design, restoring ecosystems and revitalizing communities can help bring polarized Americans together toward great justice and sustainability. Is he right? Come and judge for yourself and prepare to be inspired. John deGraaf is the founder and outreach director of the And Beauty For All campaign, author of Affluenza, Take Back Your Time, and What’s the Economy For Anyway? and has produced more than 40 documentaries. His first film, A Common Man’s Courage won the award as Best Local Public Television Program in the US for 1977 from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Since then he has received more than 100 regional, national and international awards for filmmaking.
March 21
The Future: Climate, Technology and Society
Kim Stanley Robinson
2018 Mellon Distinguished Fellow in Environmental Humanities
7:00 p.m. Ostrove Auditorium
Kim Stanley Robinson is one of the most well-known and respected science fiction writers in the world. His work has received 11 major awards from the science fiction field and has been translated into 23 languages. His Mars trilogy was an international bestseller, and continues to be one of the most widely read works of science fiction, a benchmark in discussions of humanity in space. The intensively researched nature of Robinson’s fiction, and the integrated nature of his various interests, ranging from the physical and human sciences to sustainability issues, political economy, urban design and climate change lends a realism to his writing that has been described as “for the future and from the future.” His most recent work, New York 2140, envisions life in New York City after sea levels have risen fifty feet. Mr. Robinson will speak on themes he explores in his works, which center on the opportunities he sees for humanity to build more sustainable and just societies in response to current and future environmental challenges.
March 22
Dave McEvoy
Appalachian State University
Economics Seminar-Christian A. Johnson Lecture Series
4 p.m., Diamond 431
Environmental Humanities scholars with an interest in gathering insights on environmental issues from other disciplines may wish to attend this economics seminar by Dave McEvoy, whose research areas include environmental economics. Though the topic of his talk has not yet been determined, he recently co-authored a paper titled The prospects for Paris: behavioral insights into unconditional cooperation on climate change. Its abstract reads: “Recent survey evidence from the United States suggests that most Americans support domestic policies to address climate change, and this support is not conditional on other countries’ commitment levels. The finding is somewhat perplexing because climate change is by definition a collective problem that requires a collective response. However, the question of why Americans support unconditional climate initiatives has not been addressed. We present survey evidence that shows a willingness to act alone is not the result of misunderstanding the collective nature of the climate problem, but rather people are driven by notions of responsibility, morality and global leadership.”
April 2
Snowpiercer
Environmental Humanities Film Screening
7:30 p.m., Arey 5
After an attempt at climate engineering to stop global warming goes wrong, a new ice age is triggered. The last remnants of humanity travel around the globe on the train Snowpiercer, on which a new class system has emerged. This English-language South Korean-Czech science fiction action film is based on the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige by Jacques Lob, Benjamin Legrand and Jean-Marc Rochette. Directed by Bong Joon-ho. Starring Chris Evans, Jamie Bell, and Tilda Swinton. (2013)
April 19
Works in Progress
English Faculty Discussion
4 p.m., Miller 220
Two English faculty will discuss their work as it relates to Mary Shelly, the department’s spring theme.
Arthur Jeremiah Roberts Professor of Literature Mary Ellis Gibson will present the paper “On ‘The Last Man’ and Geoapocalypse” about Indian science fiction and the colonial problematic.
Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Environmental Humanities Chris Walker will present his paper “Cyborg Agency and Anthropocene Myth: The Afterlives of Prometheus” on myth and science fiction in the Anthropocene. Students are welcome.
April 24
Capturing the Ever-Present Story–Dragonflies I have seen
Brooke Williams
6:30pm, Diamond 123
Join the Environmental Studies Program as we welcome Jan Plan instructor Brooke Williams back to campus to share his latest writings and musings on dragonflies. Brooke Williams has spent the last thirty years advocating for wilderness, most recently with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. His journalistic pieces have been featured in Outside, Huffington Post, Orion, and Saltfront. He is also the author of four books, including “Halflives: Reconciling Work and Wilderness”, “The Story of My Heart”, by Richard Jeffries, as rediscovered by Brooke Williams and Terry Tempest Williams, and “Open Midnight”.
April 25
Reading Comics and Graphic Literature in a Time of Environmental Crisis
Thomas Doran, Rhode Island School of Design
11:30 lunch, 12:00 lecture, Fairchild Room, Dana
What role can comics and other forms of literary-visual art play in our conversations about the environment? This talk by Thomas Doran, assistant professor, Rhode Island School of Design, explores how comics-art functions as a unique medium for telling stories about how humans and other animals relate to their environments, focusing especially on the form’s capacity for representing time, space, and interspecies consciousness. Sponsored by the Environmental Studies Program.
April 25
Q&A with Faculty Seminar in Environmental Humanities
6 p.m., Miller 14
Colby faculty participants in the Faculty Seminar in Environmental Humanities have discussed humanities approaches to environmental issues in a year-long seminar, and they would like to share some of their excitement with you. Come learn their answers to questions like these: What are the environmental humanities? What makes humanities approaches to environmental issues distinctive and important? How might your current research or coursework intersect with the ongoing environmental humanities initiative? What courses in environmental humanities are already being offered at Colby?
May 3
Global Change Ecology and Environmental Humanities: Stories of Crisis and Resilience
CLAS session, sponsors: Chris Walker, Denise Bruesewitz
1- 2:25 p.m., Diamond 242
1:00 – Backstrand, Sarah W. (’18)
Kudzu: A Reflection on Interconnectedness and Love
1:14 – Donchik, Katherine A. (’18)
The COtune
1:28 – Hurley, Meghan A. (’20)
Growth and Decay of Nature, Humans, and Human Nature
1:42 – Kullberg, Alyssa T. (’18)
Catfish bleed crude
1:56 – Plante, Tucker B. (’18)
Bees in the Anthropocene
2:10 – Theyerl, Benjamin T. (’20)
Becoming With the Season; Becoming With Home
May 6
Mad Max: Fury Road
Environmental Humanities Film Screening
7:30 p.m., Arey 5
The fourth installment of the Mad Max series is set in a post apocalyptic Australian desert wasteland where gasoline and water are scarce commodities. A woman rebels against a tyrannical ruler in search for her homeland with the help of a group of female prisoners, a psychotic worshipper, and a drifter named Max. They escape in an armored tanker truck and a lengthy road battle ensues. Directed by George Miller. Starring: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, and Nicholas Hoult. (2015)
