Last Friday, Lewis & Clark College held an annual conference called the Festival of Scholars. Instead of classes, the college hosts a collection of panels, art exhibitions, performances, poster sessions, and other displays of student produced research and work. I was fortunate enough to participate in two poster presentations for my Environmental Studies classes (330 & 350) as well as present an English paper I wrote last semester on a panel called Locating & Searching.
330 Poster: For my third year core environmental studies course, we completed group projects with a focus on solutions. While in the second year class, we focused on identifying, describing, and explaining topics of the environment, this project was meant to evaluate if and for whom these topics might be classified as a problem, and if so, what can or should be done. My group inherited a project about the Bonneville Dam from second-year peers and, using background from the previous project, examined the relationship between the Bonneville Dam and the anticipated Cascadia megathrust earthquake due to hit the Pacific Northwest potentially in the next 50 years. Complete project can be found here.
350 Poster: For our Environmental Theory course, we situated projects relating to different realms of environmental theories that we have read so far (ethics, politics, knowledge, and reality) in the real-life place of Douglas County, Oregon. I chose to apply metaphors the The Fall of Man (such as from a state of pure nature to one of impure or harmed nature, among other relationship of this biblical allusion to environmental discourse) to the use of knowledge by different actors in Douglas County. In particular, I focused on county officials, young entrepreneurs, and environmental groups and their distinct narratives of the future of their county. See full project here.
Panel Presentation: I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to present a research paper I wrote last semester for my major figures course on William Faulkner, taken towards my English major. In this project, I engaged in the realm of ecocriticism, a way of interpreting literature through an environmental lens. Following themes of water, sexuality, and the relationship between a character’s psychology and their external landscape, I examined several works of Faulkner’s early career in relation to each other and the landscape of the American South. Full paper, transcript of presentation, and slides are available here.
In addition to my own work at Festival of Scholars, I had the opportunity to see the research of seniors in both English and Environmental Studies present their capstone/thesis/honors thesis work.
First, I had the privilege of hearing Kristen Lang present her honors thesis in English on cross-textual dialogue between Shakespeare’s Othello and Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North. While I have only seen Othello performed once, I read Season of Migration last fall in Rishona Zimring’s post-colonial literature class and it remains one of my highest recommended reads. Kristen’s thesis explored the allusions to Othello in Salih’s novel and argues that the interpretations, appropriations, critiques, and mis-representations of Othello in later performances, art, and novel’s like Salih actually change Othello as much as Othello influences them. Essentially, literature is backwards compatible. She pulled in theorists like Bruno Latour, a name that appears often in the realm of environmental studies and sciences. Her claim that everything is entangled, from Othello to Salih to my presentation on Faulkner’s interconnections resembles a sort of ecocriticism of the Eric Gary Anderson flavor: the complication and blurring of boundaries and interpretation of interconnection in literature. This panel helped tie both of my majors together in this way of reading novels and stories through a sort of ecology.
Secondly, I had the chance to speak with Lydia Bleifuss about her thesis and research on water institutions in Chile. When we were doing research on our Bonneville Dam project, we looked to Chile to learn more about how earthquake-prone areas manage their dams for disasters. Lydia explained how there is much controversy about water and dams in Chile, including between whitewater recreationists and hydropower affiliates. Notably, Lydia traveled to Chile over winter break on a SAAB grant in order to conduct research for this project. It was very enlightening to learn both her research methods on a topic that particularly interests me, even if my future thesis isn’t completely related.
Lastly, I listened to Sam Shafer discuss her capstone on troubling nature in place-based education in Portland. Her capstone was heavily directed by different theories, including ideas about multiculturalism, social justice, and place as well as with qualitative interview data. Her poster was essentially a guided mind map that was beautiful in design, representative of her intellectual process, and rich with information. I found the intersections of her project with concepts of justice to be particularly interesting and important to my own conception of what my capstone might be and why environmental scholarship (and theory) is valuable.
The general atmosphere at Festival of Scholars was one a great pride, even after a push of hard work to complete the outcome required for the conference. I was proud of my own work, I was proud of my peers for their hard work, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. If the point of the conference was to showcase interdisciplinarity among student work, it certainly succeeded. I have two observations, one more cosmetic while the other one is the seed of a larger idea. First: Bruno Latour is very applicable and I should read more of him. Second: The concepts of multiculturalism, postcolonialism, power, and justice are hot topics that have transcended department and medium at the Festival of Scholars. Perhaps I am more attuned to these concepts and thus extrapolate them from less explicit content, but nonetheless I think that Lewis & Clark students are thinking very critically about justice on various levels (global, local, literary, education-wise, natural resources, etc. etc. etc.). I think this is, perhaps, a really good and important thing.