Environmental Humanities Initiative Distinguished Lecture

Environmental Humanities Initiative Distinguished Lecture

WITH A READING GROUP SERIES AND GRADUATE COURSE OPTION

Join the IHR/GIOS for our (now rescheduled) 2020 Environmental Humanities Initiative (EHI) Distinguished Lecture, “From Garden Warriors to Gastrodiplomacy,” with Elizabeth Hoover (video recorded lecture and live Zoom Q and A), November 5, 2020, 4-5:30 pm.

Professor Hoover will explore Native American community based farming and gardening projects; the ways in which people are defining and enacting concepts like food sovereignty and seed sovereignty; the role of Native chefs in the food movement; and the fight against the fossil fuel industry to protect heritage foods.

Hoover is an associate professor in the Environmental Science and Policy Management department at the University of California Berkeley whose work focuses on food sovereignty and environmental justice for Native communities. Her first book “The River is In Us: Fighting Toxics in a Mohawk Community” (University of Minnesota Press, 2107), is an ethnographic exploration of Akwesasne Mohawks’ response to Superfund contamination and environmental health research. Her second book project-in-progress, “From Garden Warriors to Good Seeds; Indigenizing the Local Food Movement,” explores Native American community-based farming and gardening projects. She also recently co-edited a book “Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the United States with Devon Mihesuah” (University of Oklahoma Press, 2019). 

This event is cosponsored by the IHR’s Environmental Humanities Initiative, The Global Futures Laboratory, The Human Sciences Collaboratory, American Indian Studies, The Global Institute of Sustainability, The Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems and the School for the Future of Innovation in Society.

Register for the lecture.

Reading Group / One Credit Graduate Course

Prior to the lecture Joni Adamson and Joan McGregor will lead three reading group sessions that aim to explore the work of Elizabeth Hoover and other writers and researchers who focus on the concepts of food justice and food sovereignty. Attendees will gain an enriched understanding of climate justice and food sovereignty activism and research focused on indigenous food cultures, knowledges and agricultural sciences. 

The group will also explore the concept of “global syndemic” or the notion that simultaneous and connected epidemics, including malnutrition, racism, structural inequities, catalyzed by over five centuries of colonization and accelerating neoliberal development, and resource extraction are linked to the current COVID-19 pandemic and exacerbate the underlying conditions — diabetes, asthma, violent policing—that are making the virus more deadly to some. 

Readings will be interdisciplinary and diverse so we learn from the expertise of disciplines both inside and outside of the humanities. With Andrew W. Mellon funding, we will also be collaborating with the University of Pretoria, and reading group members will have the opportunity to interact with our colleagues in South Africa. 

Reading group members have the option of earning one graduate credit in a course co-taught by Joni Adamson (Joni.Adamson@asu.edu, English) and Joan McGregor (j.mcgregor@asu.edu, Philosophy). Students may register for any section cross-listed section of the course ENG/HUL/SFS/SOS/PHI 598 and earn one credit by attending the reading group and completing the readings and some writing assignments. The course will be capped at 20. Please direct any questions about the course to Professors Adamson and McGregor.

·      Reading Group: Environmental Humanities Wrap-up, 11/12, 3 PM MST

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