Initial Publication Date: December 9, 2024
Products and Publications
The following were supported fully or in part by HEAL and the Mellon Foundation Just Futures award:
Publications
- Hougham, Justin R., Sarah Burgess, and Jody Bauer. 2024. Reported Decreases in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Practices in Environmental Education Organizations. Journal of Experiential Education 47: 238-243. doi.org/10.1177/10538259241232323
- Caldwell, Kela, Dorothy Lsoto, AnnaBeth Thomas, Alexandra Villa, and Erika Marin-Spiotta. 2024. Interrogating the Academy: Critical Approaches to Engaged Pedagogy, Advising, and Mentorship. In: J.A. McElderry and S.H. Rivera (eds). Pp. 131-146.Developing an Intersectional-Consciousness and Praxis: Moving Toward Antiracist Efforts in Higher Education. Information Age Publishing.
- Diaz-Vallejo, Emily J., Ken Keefover-Ring, Elizabeth Hennessy and ErikaMarín-Spiotta. 2024. Critical Engaged Pedagogy to Confront Racism and Colonialism in (Geo)Science Education through a Historical Lens. Earth Science, Systems and Society4: doi.org/10.3389/esss.2024.10114
- Clark-Pujara, Christy, Karen Reece, Alexander Gee, Stephen Kantrowitz. 2023. A Location of Possibility: Teaching Black History to White Folks at a Black-Led Church. Journal of American History 109: 887–895.
- Bafu, Ruby, Yanika Davis, Jalessa Bryant. From Conference to Community: A Reflective Essay About Humanizing Research. Black Madison Voices Blog. Published November 9, 2022.
- Michelson-Ambelang, Todd. 2022. Our Libraries Are Colonial Archives: South Asian Collections in Western and Global North Libraries. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 45: 236-249. doi.org/10.1080/00856401.2022.2041282
- Hougham, R.Justin and Derek Hoshiko, Eds. 2022. Justice and Equity in Environmental Education Special Issue Winter 2022. CLEARING: PacificNorthwest Journal of Community-Based Environmental Literacy Education https://clearingmagazine.org/archives/17391
Courses
HEALing the Sciences Short Course
- The Zoom-based, interactive, synchronous 4 week (8 hr total) course will examine how patterns of scientific racism, white supremacy and extractivism have shaped the past and present of individual STEM disciplines and provide strategize actions for addressing injustice today. Participants will learn how understanding history can help make science more inclusive and equitable today and how to develop toolkits for anti-racist and anti-colonial scientific practice. The learning objectives are: 1) Examine how racism and white supremacy culture have shaped the practice of science since the Enlightenment; 2) Analyze relationships between scientific methods and extraction (of knowledge, labor, and material resources); 3) Critically examine the assumptions of their own field and research; and 4) Strategize actions for addressing injustice in their lab groups, classrooms, departments, and disciplines. Elizabeth Hennessy, Aida Aerosaie, Erika Marin-Spiotta, Evan Hepler.
Histories of Racism and Colonialism in Environmental Science
- This seminar will explore histories of ideas about race, racism, white supremacy, and settler colonialism as they relate to environmentalism and environmental science in the past and today. Topics covered will include the colonial history of natural history and the earth sciences, environmental determinism, scientific racism, and the relationship between the eugenics movement and national parks conservation. We will take a historical approach to understanding how racism and extractivism became institutionalized in the environmental sciences and how they manifest today. We will also study recent work that aims to address racial and ethnic inequalities in the sciences. The course will be reading- and discussion-heavy and will deal with challenging issues. There are no prerequisites, but an open mind and interest or experience in the sciences and environmentalism are recommended. Elizabeth Hennessy.
Why History Matters: Slavery and Capitalism in the United States
- American slavery and American capitalism developed in tandem; the two systems were interdependent. Yet, only recently have scholars (economists and historians) at mainstream institutions begun studying the many intersections of slavery and capitalism in the Americas, despite the pioneering work of Black scholars like Eric Williams who wrote Slavery and Capitalism in 1944. Until the 1990s many mainstream historians and economists at predominantly white institutions continued to write and teach slavery as pre-capitalist, situating modern capitalism with free labor and as an oppositional system to race-based slaveholding. We will read and discuss the intersections of slavery of modern capitalism and explore the following questions: What are the historical connections between the "new world" race-based slavery and capitalism? Why have slavery and capitalism only recently been studied as interdependent systems? How did the growth and dominance of capitalism as an economic system affect slavery as an institution and the experiences of enslaved people? How did the labor of enslaved people affect the development and growth of wage labor? Christy Clark-Pujara and Kaaren Reece. Collaboration with Justified Anger: Black History for a New Day 2.0.
Why History Matters: Systemic Racism in the American University and Society
- How has systemic racism shaped universities and colleges in the United States? We will explore the social histories of the development and maintenance of structural racism in American universities and society. The histories of ethnic cleansing forced removals, and the creation of race-based slavery will receive special attention. We will explore and think through the systematic and structural exclusion and marginalization of Indigenous and Black people in higher education, including the founding of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Christy Clark-Pujara and Kaaren Reece. Collaboration with Justified Anger: Black History for a New Day 2.0.
Ecocultural Worlds: Queer, Black, and Indigenous perspectives on the Environment
- This seminar is for critics, environmental practitioners, and cultural workers interested in probing the boundaries and excesses of disciplines concerned with relations among human, animal, plant, microbe, fungi, and elemental bodies. As a counter to cybernetics notions of social-ecological systems that assume a sharp nature-culture binary, feminist and Indigenous thinkers have put forth the more-than human, other than human, naturecultures, and the ecocultural as figures and grounds for analysis of these relations, as a counter to cybernetics notions of social-ecological systems that assume a sharp nature-culture binary. To explore the potentials of this emerging body of thought, we will read across Black geographies, Indigenous studies, feminist science studies, political ecology, and queer and trans theory. In addition to the usual suspects, we will read community activists' critical perspectives on ecological restoration and engage speculative and artistic works. We'll work with proven imaginative and experimental practices to foster ecocultural thought—and propose paths towards justice and Earth repair. Cleo Woelfle-Erskine.
Race, Nature, Science
- Science shapes our environments in myriad ways. Scientific narratives often stress discovery and innovation, but science writ large also has been involved in the creation and maintenance of white supremacy since the Enlightenment, if not before. This graduate seminar for humanities and social science scholars will explore how changing practices of scientific knowledge production have shaped understandings of race and racism as well as evolving processes of colonialism and development, often in mutually reinforcing ways. Drawing from both classic works as well as recent scholarship in history of science/science and technology studies, geography, environmental history, and critical race theory, we will discuss how interconnections among nature, race, indigeneity, and the production of knowledge have changed over time. Just what is science, and how has it operated in and through white supremacy to shape histories of scientific racism, colonialism, and extractivism? How is science itself extractive and how—and with what effects—has race become a scientific methodology? We will seek to understand how long histories of racialized knowledge production have shaped the contemporary sciences, including: who does science vs. who is excluded; what counts as science vs. what is deemed unscientific; and who is affected by science, and how (benefit vs. harm)? And if science is weighted by histories of racism and extractivism, how can we think about and do science differently? The seminar will be heavy on reading and discussion. Students will be able to craft a final project that is helpful for their stage and the goals of their graduate career. Elizabeth Hennessy.
Practicum in Community-Engaged Research
- Introduces practices for co-generating environmental research with frontline communities or the agencies they work with. Readings ground this work in an ecocultural worlds framework, in which ecological and cultural factors are understood to coinfluence one another. Introduces theories from feminist science studies, Indigenous studies, political ecology, and allied fields on community-led research and action. Through a weekly practicum, students develop a community engagement protocol on a topic of their interest. Cleo Woelfle-Erskine.
Earth Partnership: Restoration Education for Equity & Resilience
Race and the Scientific Method
Slavery and Capitalism in the United States
U.S. Women's History of Slavery
African American Faith and Spirituality Before the Civil War
Indigenous Field-Based Learning for Land Stewardship in LCO
Field Course
- This Field Course is a collaboration between UW-Madison, the University of California ARN and Karuk and Tribal members. This will be an amazing opportunity for students to understand the broader public and environmental health issues facing Native communities in different regions. Tribes are addressing these issues through cultural revitalization, ecocultural restoration, and intergenerational knowledge exchange. As two universities, we are collaborating to share experiences and create spaces for students to learn how to engage with diverse Native communities respectfully, by following Tribal protocol, understanding Tribal sovereignty, and practicing reciprocity. University of Washington and University of Wisconsin are both working with Tribal partners on addressing issues affecting their communities; this course will prepare students for engaging in this work, through shared learning in the classroom and hands-on service learning projects on campus and in the community. Cheryl Bauer-Armstrong and Cleo Woelfle-Erskine.
Course description
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