| 2010 Faculty
Fellows Conference:
The Environment
Tentative date: Friday, March 26th
2010
McGregor Memorial Conference Center
(click for a map)
Free and open to the public!
Keynote Speakers:
(click on a blue link to view an abstract!)
Not yet Determined
Wayne State Speakers include:
(click on a blue link to view the abstract!)
Dora
Apel
Professor, Art and Art History
"The Landscape of
War" - Chapter in book: War Culture: Art, Media, and Contemporary
War
Eric
H. Ash
Associate Professor, History
Shifting Knowledge, Shifting
Nature: The Drainage of the English Fens
Victor Figuroa
Assistant Professor, Classical and Modern Languages, Literatures
and Cultures
Eco-Coloniality: Nature
between Empire & Revolution in Alejo Capentier's El reino
de este mundo
Richard Grusin
Professor, English
American Water Works
Guerin Montilus
Professor, History
The Adja Fon of Southern
Benin, Cultural Change, Vodun Religion and the Environment
Bruce Russell
Professor, Philosophy Classical and Modern Languages, Literatures
and Cultures
The Philosophical Basis
of a Limited Land Ethics
John Strate
Associate Professor, Political Science
Comparing Three Environmental
Discourses: Growth Forever, Sustainable Development, and Green
Anca
Vlasopolos
Professor, English
Cartographies of
Scale (and Wine)
Monica
White
Assistant Professor, Sociology
Emergent Cityscapes:
Communities of Color, Urban Farming and the Environment
EXPLICATION
From the cave paintings of early humans to the elaborate laboratory-like
zoological gardens in contemporary cities, nature and humans’
place in nature have preoccupied humanity. We measure ourselves
against nature; we create myths to explain natural phenomena; religions
begin in intense, visionary encounters with the natural Other; science
attempts to persuade us in the twenty-first century to begin to
see ourselves as part of nature, not as dominators or exploiters
of it.
The theological and classical views of humans as stewards of the
natural world as well as lords of creation began to give way to
more systematic approaches following the Copernican and Galilean
revolution: our entire planet was no longer
the center of the universe. The discovery of the microscope led
to advances in empirical science. Alexander von Humboldt’s
path-breaking scientific study of nature, the three-volume Personal
Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, 1799-1804,
was pivotal in engendering a new approach to nature. This work influenced
generations of naturalists, including the young Charles Darwin,
who sought to systematize both nature’s living and nonliving
productions and characterize the laws governing the natural world.
Humboldt’s portrayal of lands untouched by human presence
also stimulated a new genre of literary and artistic expression—the
wilderness romance and lyric meditation along with landscapes, prints,
and, by the 1840s, photographs depicting the romantic conception
of pristine nature. In the United States, Thoreau is often hailed
as the most notable progenitor of a new sense of environmental awareness,
addressing ideas of communion with nature, ecological relationships,
and the conservation of natural resources, expressed in Walden (1854)
and other writings. In the wake of the major assaults on the environment
produced by the Industrial Revolution, empire building and expansion,
and globalization, early twentieth-century naturalists, most notably
Aldo Leopold, offered less sanguine meditations on the human relationship
to nature, vigorously promoting activism in preserving and conserving
rapidly disappearing natural treasures. Yet as environmental historian,
Susan Flader , noted Leopold’s advocacy of “land husbandry”
or wilderness conservation in A Sand County Almanac (1949) “contains
no panaceas, no blueprints for mass action.” Moved by the
realization that birds were crucial to keeping in check pests that
destroyed agriculture, the Audubon society in the late nineteen
century began lobbying for bird preservation and protection. As
we devised other means of preventing harmful insects from competing
with us for crops, a new naturalism was born: Rachel Carson in her
classic work, Silent Spring (1962), attacked current “Stone
Age science” that would unquestioningly spread deadly DDT,
asking, “How could intelligent beings seek to control a few
unwanted species by a method that contaminated the entire environment
and brought the threat of disease and death even to their own kind?”
Carson’s warning channeled the outrage many felt at the continued,
mindless, and harmful exploitation of nature. She inspired the environmental
movement of the late twentieth century. Yet her message—promoting
an ethical, responsible and sustainable approach toward satisfying
human economic needs with the survival of species and of natural
resources—still meets with opposition and derision.
Keynote
Speaker
Dora
Apel
Professor, Art and Art History
"The Landscape of War" - Chapter in book: War Culture:
Art, Media, and Contemporary War
Eric
H. Ash
Associate Professor, History
Shifting Knowledge, Shifting Nature: The Drainage of the English
Fens
Victor
Figuroa
Assistant
Professor, Classical and Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures
Eco-Coloniality: Nature between Empire & Revolution in Alejo
Capentier's El reino de este mundo
Richard
Grusin
Professor,
English
American Water Works
Guerin
Montilus
Professor,
History
The Adja Fon of Southern Benin, Cultural Change, Vodun Religion
and the Environment
Bruce
Russell
Professor,
Philosophy Classical and Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures
The Philosophical Basis of a Limited Land Ethics
John
Strate
Associate
Professor, Political Science
Comparing Three Environmental Discourses: Growth Forever, Sustainable
Development, and Green
Anca
Vlasopolos
Professor,
English
Cartographies of Scale (and Wine)
Monica
White
Assistant
Professor, Sociology
Emergent Cityscapes: Communities of Color, Urban Farming and
the Environment
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