The museum has partnered with UConn’s Fridays for Future Club.

Inspired by the exhibition "The Human Epoch: Living in the Anthropocene", members of UConn’s Fridays for Future club discusses climate justice and green capitalism in their video The Contradictions of Green Capitalism.

See our webpage for the link to the video: https://benton.uconn.edu/fridays-for-future-takeover-climate-justice/

A cinematic meditation on humanity’s massive reengineering of the planet, "Anthropocene: The Human Epoch" is a feature documentary film from the multiple-award winning team Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier and international acclaimed photographer Edward Burtynsky. 1hr 29min.

This film follows the research of an international body of scientists, the Anthropocene Working Group who, after nearly 10 years of research, are arguing that the Holocene Epoch gave way to the Anthropocene Epoch in the mid-twentieth century, because of profound and lasting human changes to the Earth.

From concrete seawalls in China that now cover 60% of the mainland coast, to the biggest terrestrial machines ever built in Germany, to psychedelic potash mines in Russia’s Ural Mountains, to metal festivals in the closed city of Norilsk, to the devastated Great Barrier Reef in Australia and surreal lithium evaporation ponds in the Atacama desert, the filmmakers have traversed the globe using high end production values and state of the art camera techniques to document evidence and experience of human planetary domination.

After the film Eleanor Ouimet, Assistant Professor in Residence of Anthropology at UConn, will give a short commentary on the film based on her work and answer questions. She is an environmental anthropologist who studies human-environment interactions, cross-cultural conservation practices, community response to natural hazards and the effects of climate change, and the links between culture, history, economics, environmental ethics and resource management.

Zoom Webinar Event- REGISTER HERE: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_d8Q5ly60TQq1-FHbgvkjxw

This event is sponsored by The William Benton Museum of Art and co-sponsored by EcoHouse and UConn Reads.

"Guilt, Gratitude, and Lives Adrift: A Preliminary Reading of the Pandemic Journals” 

Kate Mason, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Brown University
Sarah Willen, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Connecticut

In late May 2020, as the force and magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic became increasingly evident, we convened an interdisciplinary team of faculty and students and raced to create the Pandemic Journaling Project (https://pandemic-journaling-project.chip.uconn.edu/), a combined journaling platform and research study that lets anyone around the world produce a weekly record of this turbulent time using text, audio, and photos – for themselves and for posterity, in English or Spanish. By January 2021, over 700 people in 29 countries had contributed more than 6,000 journal entries, along with a trove of complementary survey data on self-reported health status, COVID-19 exposure, and trust in institutions. In this presentation, we will share preliminary findings from this “third space of ethnography” (Fischer 2018) and consider what it can—and cannot—teach us about the lived experience of these pandemic times.

Join via: https://uconnvtc.webex.com/meet/anthrodept

The Quest for Environmental and Climate Justice

Robert Bullard, Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning and Environmental Policy, Texas Southern University

Event Live Stream link and full list of Sponsors on the Teale Series webpage: https://cese.uconn.edu/the-edwin-way-teale-lecture-series/

Please join us for the next virtual Teale lecture to be streamed live on Thursday, March 11 at 4:00pm EST.

Dr. Robert Bullard has often been described as the father of environmental justice. A Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning Environmental Policy, and former Dean of the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs at Texas Southern University, he is also an award-winning author of eighteen books: https://drrobertbullard.com/books/

Climate change is the defining environmental justice, human rights, and public health issue of the twenty-first century. The most vulnerable populations around the world will suffer the earliest and most damaging setbacks because of where they live, their limited income and economic means, and their lack of access to health care. Dr. Bullard will examine the intersection of environmental action (or inaction) and racial disparities. The presentation will focus primarily on the United States and the need for empowering vulnerable populations, identifying environmental justice and climate change “hot-spot” zones. Bullard will discuss designing fair, just and effective adaptation, mitigation, emergency management and community resilience and disaster recovery strategies, and offer strategies to dismantle institutional policies and practices that create, exacerbate, and perpetuate inequality and vulnerability before and after disasters strike.

Bullard’s most recent books include Race, Place and Environmental Justice After Hurricane Katrina (2009), Environmental Health and Racial Equity in the United States (2011), and The Wrong Complexion for Protection (2012).

In 2013, Robert Bullard was honored with the Sierra Club John Muir Award, the first African American to win the award, and in 2014, the Sierra Club named its new Environmental Justice Award after Dr. Bullard. Bullard completed his PhD at Iowa State University, and the Iowa State University Alumni Association named him its Alumni Merit Award recipient in 2015—an award also given to alumnus George Washington Carver in 1937.

Introducing and moderating the program discussion will be University of Connecticut hosts Carol Atkinson-Palombo and Michael Willig. Carol Atkinson-Palombo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography, Director of the Environmental Studies Program at UConn, and Chair of the University Senate. Distinguished Professor Michael Willig is the Executive Director of the Institute of the Environment and Director of the Center for Environmental Science and Engineering at UConn.

This WebEx event is open to the public and viewers may submit question via chat during the live program.

This dialogue provides the opportunity for faculty, staff, and students to discuss, share experiences, and ask questions about race. There are two opportunities to attend: Thursday March 11 or Thursday March 18.

Given the immense amount of diversity on the UConn campus, it is important to engage in meaningful dialogues about race and racism. It is up to college campuses to respond to, engage, and reflect the diversity of their students. This workshop provides the opportunity for faculty, staff, and students to discuss, share experiences, and ask questions about race on campus. This session focuses on the barriers of creating a more diverse and accepting university as well as discussing concrete steps that we might take as a community, as an institution, and as individuals to combat racism and build a more diverse and inclusive campus environment.

For more information and a link to register for the event visit: https://democracyanddialogues.dodd.uconn.edu/2021/02/02/03-11-03-18-race-and-community-dialogue-3/

Co-hosted by the Democracy & Dialogues Initiative of the Dodd Human Rights Impact and UConn’s Office for Diversity and Inclusion. Contact Dialogues@uconn.edu with any questions.

Shana L. Redmond (she/her) is a public-facing scholar and the author of Anthem: Social Movements and the Sound of Solidarity in the African Diaspora (NYU Press, 2014) and Everything Man: The Form and Function of Paul Robeson (Duke UP, 2020) which was named one of NPR’s Best Books of 2020 and a finalist for the inaugural book prize from the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. In 2019 she contributed the critical liner essay for the vinyl soundtrack release to Jordan Peele’s film Us (Waxwork Records). She is a professor of Musicology and African American Studies at UCLA.

Professor Redmond's talk will be Monday, March 15th, starting at 4 PM EST. To attend the talk, follow the link below.

https://tinyurl.com/shanaredmond

Presented by Dodd Impact, the Human Rights Institute, and the Department of Digital Media and Design, the Human Rights Film+ Series spotlights new work from DMD faculty who address human rights issues through film, animation, and game design.

Please join us on March 16, 2021 at 06:00 for film screening followed by discussion with documentary filmmaker and UConn Professor Heather Cassano of her work 'The Limits of My World.'

Please register here:https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_b25-qqqLS4uAaUZlMcmpHA

Please join the UConn History Department for the second, and final, Noether Dialogues in Italian & Modern History of the Spring 2021 semester. This is the second semester of a relatively new series under the leadership of Sergio Luzzatto, the Emiliana Pasca Noether Chair in Modern Italian History here at the University of Connecticut.

The latest Noether Dialogue will be "Ego-History? Writing History in the Age of Neo-Liberalism" on Wednesday, March 17, from 12:15-1:30 PM EST.

The keynote speaker will be Enzo Traverso (Cornell University). Guest speakers include Luisa Passerini (University of Turin) and Philippe Artières (Cnrs, Paris). Professor Luzzatto will moderate the discussion. All are welcome.

Please register in advance for this meeting. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Please register at this link:

https://tinyurl.com/noether-dialogues-4

The global movement towards the adoption of human rights due diligence laws is gaining momentum. Starting in France, moving to the Netherlands, and now at the European Union level, lawmakers across Europe are accepting the need to legislate to require that companies conduct human rights due diligence throughout their global operations. The situation in the United States is very different: on the federal level there is currently no law that mandates corporate human rights due diligence. Civil society organization International Corporate Accountability Roundtable is stepping into the breach with a legislative proposal building on the model of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to prohibit corporations from engaging in grave human rights violations and to give the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice the power to investigate any alleged violations. Our paper discusses this proposal.

Please register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_sHDLnOihS8uWBSyOkDvHeA

Guests of the Guerrilla: The Integrated Spectacle and Disintegrating Peace, An Ethnographic Analysis of the FARC’s Tenth (and Final?) Guerrilla Conference

Alex Fattal, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, University of California, San Diego

In September of 2016, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) held their final conference as a guerrilla movement in the Plains of Yarí, southern territory where they have long been influential. Unlike its previous nine conferences, it would blow this one, the Décima, open to the media. This paper is an ethnography of the Décima and an analysis of the FARC’s bid to brand its way to respectability as it transformed to a legal political movement at the end of the negotiating period. “Guests of the Guerrilla” reconsiders the well-worn category of spectacle as articulated by Guy Debord in 1967 and reconsidered in 1988. Specifically, it interprets the FARC’s foray into spectacular politics through the category of the integrated spectacle, in which commodity images and dictatorial iconography fuse to create a more robust spectacular system increasingly able to bend reality. Through written descriptions and photographic depictions, I interpret the FARC’s folly in conceiving of spectacular struggle as a level field, or even one in which some of its leaders felt they had intrinsic advantages. I argue that the group’s vanguardist structure and relative inexperience with spectacular politics led to delusional visions of leading a counterhegemonic movement, when in reality it would face severe challenges to maintaining internal cohesion through the rocky transitional period.

Join Via: https://uconnvtc.webex.com/meet/anthrodept

Each year, the Office of the Provost hosts our Distinguished Speaker Series to highlight the scholarly expertise of a few of our most accomplished faculty. We are pleased to announce this year’s line-up.

The speakers in this series have been recently honored either as Board of Trustees Distinguished Professors or endowed professors. They are well-known at UConn and more broadly in their fields for their excellence in scholarship.

A listing of the Provost’s Distinguished Speaker Series for 2020-2021 is included below. Each talk will be broadcast via WebEx. The links for each talk will be available on the Provost’s Office website (https://provost.uconn.edu/events-and-recognition/distinguished-speaker-series/) a week before each event.

Please join us to see History Professor Sergio Luzzatto,
Emiliana Pasca Noether Chair in Modern Italian History, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences give his talk:
“Looking into a Name: The Emiliana Pasca Noether Chair, and World History” on
Tuesday, March 23, from 4 to 5 p.m.

The Provost’s Distinguished Speaker Series fosters intellectual, professional, and personal growth and collegiality among the University of Connecticut community. This series provides an opportunity for our most recently-inducted Board of Trustees Distinguished Professors and Endowed Chairs to share advances in their expertise and engage thought-provoking discussions.

Along with their respective schools and colleges, we are pleased to host these accomplished scholars who are recognized by the University as Board of Trustees Distinguished Professors or brought to UConn via named chairs with prestigious endowments. These outstanding faculty set the highest standards with their teaching, research, and outreach, and advance our university.

March 23, 2021: Sergio Luzzatto, "Looking into a Name: The Emiliana Pasca Noether Chair and World History"
•Emiliana Pasca Noether Chair in Modern Italian History, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

For more information and for the WebEx link, please visit https://provost.uconn.edu/events-and-recognition/distinguished-speaker-series/

This is an Honors Event. Categories: Academic & Interdisciplinary Engagement.

#UHLevent826

Join this panel discussion on truth, democracy, and climate change, part of the UConn Reads program, focusing on The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (University of Chicago, 2016) by Amitav Ghosh.

Elizabeth Anderson (University of Michigan), Lee McIntyre (Boston University), and Kent Holsinger (University of Connecticut)

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/uconn-reads-truth-democracy-and-climate-change-tickets-141197029115

Tap your powers of observation and investigate a single work of art through close looking and discussion with Amanda Douberley, Assistant Curator/Academic Liaison.

This week’s subject is The Sacrifice (1922-23) by Käthe Kollwitz.

Offered via Zoom Meetings – registration is required and space is limited.

Registration Link: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwlcuCrrzMrHtQ00GIiL9vq_W8ZPJHVeWqs

Your registration will be approved if space is available. You will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting or put on a wait list.